Daughter of Darkness and Shadows
by WishUponAStar1015
Summary: My name is Eirene. I'm twelve years old. My best friend is Percy Jackson. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my father was a Greek god. Now, I'm fighting for my life...and Percy documented it all. Read the story from his eyes. It's a good one.
1. Prologue

**Yeah, I know what you're saying. I really ought to finish Prophecy of Truth and Harry Potter: It Begins, but I suddenly had an idea for this when I was working on Harry potter.**

**Anyway...Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I do, however, own Eirene, aka Ren or Rennie. Standard procedure, yada yada. **

**Please review and tell me what you think!**

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**Prologue**

* * *

I never wanted this to happen. Gods, I could come up with a dozen reasons why I never wanted this to happen. I wanted to be a normal child. I wanted to grow up with my family – a normal family. But I didn't have a normal family.

I only had my mother…and she resented me for everything. She often blamed me for things I had no control over, but then…what could I do at twelve years old? Nothing…I could do nothing.

I guess I should be glad that my life changed. I mean…I escaped the hellhole which made up my life every day. My mother was extremely abusive, but for some reason I didn't care. My father abandoned us, as she told me enough times throughout my meager existence. She told me that he abandoned us because I was born. She blamed me for him leaving, blamed me for having dyslexia, blamed me for suffering from ADHD – even though for some reason it wasn't as bad as the others' – and she blamed me for making her loose her perfect figure when I was born.

Of course, I believed her when she told me that Father left because of me. I blamed **myself** for it, but it wasn't until much later that I found out what he truly was. I was shocked. No, I guess you could say I was **beyond** shocked.

What was he, you ask?

Well, he was – and still is – a Greek god. His name…is Erebus. He's the god of darkness and shadows. Fitting huh? Now I know why I always considered the shadows my friends. They comforted me when I was sad…and for other reasons you will find out later.

Well, it does make sense to me. I mean, where else would I get long black hair – with purple highlights no less – when my mother's side of the family all had blond or brown hair. And I was cursed with bright silver eyes. **Silver!** You can't tell me that silver is a natural eye color. I was picked on a lot because of these eyes.

And what does that make me? Well, I'm a half god. A demi-god to be more precise. I inherited powers, but I'll let you find out during the story.

I have a lot of half brothers and sisters, but for that I'm happy. For some reason they didnt really care if I was around or not. They weren't mean...but they weren't nice, either. Some were nicer than others, but I couldnt tell what they really thought of me. Even Nemesis. She's the goddess of revenge. Although, I had to earn their trust. Charon didn't really like me in the beginning, but father took care of that. Thanatos was really affectionate – it must be because of…well, you'll find out.

Hah, my other siblings include Aether, god of the sky, Hemera, goddess of the day, Charon, the ferryman, Momus, god of satire, Geras, god of old age, Oneiroi, god of dreams, the Moirai, who are the fates, the Hesperides, who are the guardians of the golden apples, and the twins Hypnos, god of sleep, and Thanatos, god of death.

Then…I guess you would call her my true mother. Her name is Nyx, goddess of the night. I love her more than my biological mother.

I love each and every one of them.

Eirene. That's my name. Father named me after the goddess of peace. You know, for the god of darkness and shadows he really is a warm and caring person. When he found out that mother was abusing me…well, it wasn't pretty. For some reason he couldn't find me for the first twelve years of my life…not until I met up with a boy named Percy Jackson and we went to camp Half-blood together. Percy Jackson…there's a lot of history between us. We went to Yancy together and we were best friends.

Wait, wait. Hold the questions, I'm getting there.

Let me read to you an account of our story through another's eyes. Percy was so kind to write down our adventures. Let me say that I blushed wholeheartedly when he read some parts aloud. Actually, these books were the sole reason I realized the feelings he had for me. If I hadn't read them…then I probably would have still been at home, being abused by my mother.

Well, let us begin.

This is our story through Percy Jackson's eyes. I believe it starts out a little something like this:

"_Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood._

_If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life._

_Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it get you killed in painful, nasty ways._

_If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened._

_But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before __**they**__ sense it too, and they'll come for you._

_Don't say I didn't warn you."_

Yeah, I told you that he had a way with words.

Now, do you want to hear the rest of his story – my story – **our** story?

Well, of course you do. Now, come here and I'll read the rest of the story to you. I swear on my father's name, Erebus, that everything I will tell you is the absolute truth.


	2. I Accidentally Vaporize My Teacher

**I will warn people NOW that this story is basically _The Lightning Thief _rewritten with a couple of added characters. It's not exactly the same, but the first chapter might seem like it is. I apologize if it seems that way and please give the story a chance beyond the first chapter.**

**Bold and italics means that Eirene is interrupting Percy's story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Percy Jackson series. I only own Eirene, aka Ren or Rennie.**

**Thanks to:**

**- asimplecritic **

**for reviewing.**

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**Chapter One**

**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher**

* * *

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before _they_ sense it to, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

_**Forgive me, readers. I just wanted to give you a little recap just to warn you. If you are, indeed, a half-blood like we are…then you are in grave danger. I don't want you killed just because you were interested in our story. Once again, I apologize.**_

* * *

My name is Percy Jackson.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. This is my story…and this is Ren's story. This is **our** story.

Am I a troubled kid?

Yeah, you could say that.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan – twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know – it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that…well, you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded, kleptomaniac girl, hitting one of my best friends, Grover, in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the stat of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

My other best friend was a girl of all things. She was really pretty and I sort of had a small crush on her. Okay, okay, stop looking at me that way. I had a huge crush on her. I was sure it would pass, though. Who would like a clumsy oaf like me, anyways? Her name was Eirene Grayfield, but she let me call her Ren or Rennie. I usually just call her Ren to her face, but in my mind or on paper I switch back and forth. For a twelve year old she was pretty tall, almost as tall than me, and she had long black hair with purple highlights. It was so long it reached her butt, but it was always tied back in a braid. Her bangs were swept to the side and it made her look more mature. Did I mention she was pretty?

I thought the highlights made her stand out, but it also caught the attention of the school bullies…like Nancy Bobofit.

And she also had these super cool silver eyes. Everyone always thought they were fake, like those colored contacts that people can buy nowadays, but I saw the look in her eyes when she told me they were real. She was so sad that nobody believed her…but for some reason, I did. Ren's skin was really pale and for some reason she'd blush whenever I told her I thought she looked nice or that she was pretty.

* * *

_**I always did blush whenever he complimented me. I couldn't control it and it always made my face the darkest of reds. Percy always teased me about it, but it was all in good fun. I…can't tell you, readers, what it meant for me when I heard that he believed me about my eyes. I knew then that we would be best friends at that school…but I never knew exactly how close we would grow.**_

* * *

I never did understand why she was at that school. There was nothing mentally wrong with her except that she had a bit of dyslexia and slightly – I mean just the slightest - ADHD. I guess she was just like me in a way. Ren was friends with Grover, but the two of us were the closest. We shared a bond like no other. The other kids thought it was weird that we were best friends.

That's why…when I saw the bruises for the first time…I kept thinking to myself that she was just being clumsy. I never actually knew what was going on, but I wanted to wait until she told me what was going on. If she didn't tell me, then I was going to go to my mom and tell her about the strange bruises that kept popping up on her.

Oh, look at me. I'm getting away from the actual story.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in Grover's curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

The only good thing was that Ren was here, too, and she was keeping me calm.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled, anger diminishing quickly due to the smaller hand that was holding mine captive. Ren was softly drawing things on the back of my hand, but as soon as she heard what I said I felt guilty. She had a sad look in her captivating silver eyes.

"Don't say things like that, Percy. You know I don't like violence." She quietly said. She had told me the origin of her name and I thought it suited her quite well. The goddess of peace… and Ren could barely harm a fly.

* * *

_**And once again Percy has an impeccable memory. That is exactly what I said. I'll try to keep the interruptions to a minimum; I just had to tell you, readers, that everything is right on the dot. Everything I said is truly what I said and Percy isn't making anything up.**_

* * *

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens." He explained. Ren was thinking quickly once again and looped her material clad arm through mine. She was always wearing either long sleeves or arm warmers those days. It made me curious, but I didn't want to outright question her.

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into. But, it was with Ren so I can't completely complain.

Anyway, Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

"Percy…this stuff is incredible. It's so beautiful." Ren said as she looked at all the statues. Well, I had this thing buzzing in my head that wanted me to say something like 'They're not as beautiful as you…' but I could never voice it. After a couple of attempts at telling Ren how pretty I thought she was, I gave up.

Mr. Brunner gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _stele_, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. Ren and I were trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Ren was afraid of Mrs. Dodds…and for good reason.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

Ren…Rennie had it worse. Mrs. Dodds would yell at her for nothing, smack the side of her desk or the top of her desk with a yardstick, and one time even made her cry. It was this reason that I hated her so much. Why would anyone want to make someone as sweet as Ren cry?

Ooh, I hated that woman.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, after Ren sighed again, she took my hand and switched sides. I didn't mind. It was something she did when she wanted to be comforted. And right now, she wanted to be comforted because Nancy Bobofit was on my other side – where Ren used to be standing. Nancy Bobofit always made fun of us because we held hands. I thought it was nice.

It really got on my nerves when Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you _shut up_?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed except for Ren. Thank God for her. She just glared at the others, her silver eyes flashing.

Mr. Brunner stopped his story, however.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures n the stele.

"Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. Ren had stayed up late a lot of nights helping me study for the Greek Mythology and stuff.

"That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" and elected a smile from the silver eyed girl next to me.

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because…"

"Well…" I racked my brain to remember. A squeeze from my hand encouraged me and I could feel the information rushing into my head. "Kronos was the king god, and –"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself, quickly glancing at Rennie. She nodded and I continued. "And…he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters –"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me, much to Ren's amusement. She laughed a bit and squeezed my hand as a sign to continue my story.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans, I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group and another silvery glare directed to them from Ren.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. Ren and I shared a smug look, but I still had to answer the question.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his on scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs – except for Rennie, who still had a grip on my hand – and the guys were pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

At least Ren was right by my side and I would have to worry about them bugging her. I was…overprotective I guess.

* * *

_**He was more than a little overprotective, but it was something that I loved about him. Oh! Sorry for the interruption, dear readers.**_

* * *

Grover, Ren, and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going, Ren refused and clutched my hand harder. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go – intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?" and that elected another laugh from Ren.

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard, but it was almost impossible to get angry when Rennie was by my side. She had this aura of calm about her.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C minus in my life. No – he didn't expect me to be _as good_; he expected me to be _better_. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell then correctly, even though Rennie helped me often enough.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

* * *

_**Little did we know that Mr. Brunner might as well have been at that girl's funeral. But, like always, we shrugged off the hints that he gave us and went to go eat our food like good little children. Mother – I still have the habit of calling her that – never gave me any food so Percy always brought me an extra bit of food. He was always a good friend.**_

* * *

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. Rennie was trembling and only Grover and I knew why. She was afraid of the dark – not the dark itself, but enclosed dark spaces. Her mom locked her in a closet when she had 'company' over. The dark clouds reminded her of that.

I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flood, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. I removed my hand from hers and wrapped it around her shoulders, allowing her to scoot closer. Hey, even if I was only twelve I knew when someone was afraid and I knew how to comfort someone.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from _that_ school. Ren sat with us, of course – hence my arm wrapped around her shoulders – but nobody ever thought she was from that school anyway. Only her mom made sure to tell people. That she went to the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean – I'm not a genius."

"You may not be a genius, Percy, but Mr. Brunner is just trying to make you reach your full potential. You are smart – just not in areas other people are. You'll find your place." Ren quietly said, silver eyes flashing. I couldn't help but smile down at her and offered her a bit of my sandwich.

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me the same deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. Ren's apartment was coincidentally just three doors down from us. I never knew until I saw her run from the apartment without her arm warmers and she had bruises all over her arms. Bruises that looked like fingers. I was in such a shock I never went after her.

Back to my mom…I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home, dragging Ren with me if I had to. She'd hug us – she loved Ren – and be glad to see us, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send us right back to Yancy, reminding me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me…and _Ren_. I wouldn't see her again until the holidays. I don't think I'd be able to make it that long without her calming presence.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

I was about to open my bag of cookies when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends – I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists – and dumped half of her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap and the other in Ren's lap. Her shocked, wide silvery eyes were enough to get me riled up.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her corked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. She has messed with Rennie, my best friend, not to mention Grover, my other best friend. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. Ren was staring at me with wide eyes; she wasn't scared, just shocked.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see –"

"-the water-"

"-like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, ect., ect., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. _I_ pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But –"

"You-_will-_stay here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "_Now." _And then she looked at Rennie.

"You, too, sweetheart. I need a witness." She said sweetly. Grover looked even more stricken when he heard that she wanted to talk to Ren, too.

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare behind Ren's back – I did remember what she said about not liking violence. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at us to come on.

How did she get there so fast?

* * *

_**Percy wasn't the only one who had thoughts like that. I won't lie – I was terrified by Mrs. Dodds because she reminded me of my mother, and she wanted to talk to us alone. It was a bad sign and I had a really bad feeling in my gut, but Percy was going and I didn't want him to go alone. I didn't like violence, but I would protect my friends until the end.**_

* * *

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was a part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds. Rennie was right behind me.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. I looked over to Ren and noticed that she looked a little nervous so I took her hand in mine, calming myself more than her.

I looked back. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

"What do you think she wants with us, Percey?" Ren's soft voice asked as she followed me, our hands still interlocked.

"I…I don't know." I replied. I really didn't. We followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Ren made a whimpering sound so I pulled her behind me.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson. And _you_, Eirene Grayfield. We found you as well. Finally. Confess, you two, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about and I'm sure as hell that Rennie didn't either. We backed away from the evil teacher.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on _Tom Sawyer_ from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book. But…none of those things had to do with Ren. She was a good student and tried to stay out of trouble, but trouble seemed to find her because she was friends with me.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't…"

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. No, not me. She was aiming for Ren!

I tried to move, but she lunged toward my best friend with a deadly look in her eyes. Ren screamed, silver eyes wide as she ducked…but she wasn't quick enough. Mrs. Dodd's talons raked across her shoulder, spewing blood. She screamed again, this time in pain, as I yelled her name.

I slid across the room, gathering her in my arms as she started to tremble. I remembered watching something like this on television – she was going into…shock. Yeah, she was going into shock! I put pressure on her shoulder, taking off my jacket and tying it around her shoulder in an attempt to staunch the blood…and then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me, and I was still supporting Ren. I ducked with a yelp, feeling talons slash the air over my head. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword – Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. I pushed Ren out of the way, hoping she'd be alright – a quick glance in her direction told me that she was sitting on the floor, watching the battle with wide and teary eyes.

"Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword…and earned another scream from Rem. She was truly terrified.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. _Hisss!_

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me…and Ren. Then, my mind kicked into overdrive. Ren was hurt! I rushed over to her, but imagine my surprise when she was only unconscious and her shoulder had been healed. Even her shirt was fixed! It was like nothing happened.

I nearly cried with relief when she started to wake up. Her pretty silver eyes searched the room before widening. She jolted up and threw her arms around my shoulders, crying into my shoulder.

"Percy! I thought she was going to kill you! I was so worried…" she cried. This is where it got to be a little uncomfortable. Comforting sad friends was easy…comforting a crying Ren…not so easy.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm just glad you're alright." I said. I truly meant it as well. She stopped crying soon enough and we were on our way outside.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must have been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing? What about Ren? Did she remember or did she just think she knew what was going on?

We went outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw e, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

"Who?" I heard Ren mumble. That meant she remembered!

"Who?" I echoed.

"Our _teacher_. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

Both Rennie and I caught it. He paused first, and wouldn't look at us, so I thought he was messing with us.

"Grover, this isn't funny." Ren softly said, silver eyes boring into his.

"Yeah, man. Not funny," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he never moved.

I went over to him, telling Ren to stay back.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The Pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned.

"Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?"

0o0o0

_**I couldn't help but be both worried and terrified. I wasn't sure what I just witnessed was the truth or not, but if Percy had seen it and I had seen it…then it must have been real. All I knew was that I had never been as scared as I had been right then in my entire life…but then I never even thought my life would be filled with terrors in the future.**_


	3. Three Old Ladies

**Alrighty then. No reviews. No biggie. I'd like for you guys to review, but I can't physically make you. Oh well.**

**Thanks to:**

**ChildOfAthena, ****Goddess-Demetra, ****vivvy09**

**for favoriting and**

**moonflower4048**

**for putting my story on their alert list.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Percy Jackson. I only own Eirene, aka Ren or Rennie.**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death**

* * *

_**Percy was very sweet to me after that incident when I got hurt by our not-pre-algebra teacher…or the strange beast she had become. It was sort of weird, but I liked it. I suppose I always suspected that he had a small crush on me, but I just could accept it since Mother always shot me down. She told me I was the reason that Father left…and when I was six she came home drunk and beat me. From then on that was the routine…and then she'd lock me in a closet. I wasn't scared of the shadows –no. They were my friends. I was scared of SMALL dark spaces. I was – and still am – claustrophobic. **_

* * *

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus, minus Ren, seemed to be playing some sort of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr – a perky blonde woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip – had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Nobody but Ren would believe me, but then nobody believed her, either. Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

It was the worst thing I could imagine when Ren went home for a visit – her mom apparently wanted her to come home…and she came back on crutches. She laughed it off and said that she tripped down the stairs…but I knew that Rennie wasn't that clumsy. Something was up, but still I denied it. My heart…hurt that day.

Eventually she healed and things went back to normal. The black-purple streaked haired girl I was best friends with was finally healed and it got so I almost believed the others. Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

But I had the nightmares of Ren being attacked by withered Mrs. Dodds. Her face when she was going into shock haunted my mind. I don't think I was as scared as I had ever been that day when I saw her unconscious on the floor.

Grover couldn't fool me, either. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying. Ren knew, too.

Something was going on. Something _had_ happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, the nightmares still came back. Visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat…and I could almost swear I could hear Rennie's scream echoing through my skull.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in the sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. The only two people I could stand were Ren and Grover…and it was about this time that Rennie came to me and spilled her secret.

She came to me one day after school – it was a time that we were able to go into each others' dorm rooms. She was crying and it was after she had visited her mom again. Her mom seemed like a horrible person.

"Percy?" she asked, looking down at her hands. The silver eyed girl I knew as my best friend was fidgeting; she was nervous and Ren was hardly ever nervous.

"Yeah, Rennie?" I asked, sitting down next to her. Hell, we may only be twelve, but I knew when something serious was going on. She looked up at me with tear filled eyes and pulled off one of her arm warmers. There were bruises on her arm that looked like…fingers.

"I…can't keep it to myself anymore. Percy…my mother abuses me." and tears instantly started falling from her pretty eyes. My mind flashed back to when we were at the museum; she had been crying for me. Now, she was crying because she was scared for herself.

"Ren…how often does she hit you?" I asked, my heart hurting. It was a horrible feeling, knowing that your best friend was being abused and you knew nothing about it. No, that was a lie. I knew about it, but I just didn't want to believe it.

"Every time I go home." She cried. I couldn't just leave her hanging. I opened my arms for a hug and she gladly accepted it. Suddenly, Grover walked into the room, screeching to a stop when he realized what was going on.

"Oh, uh…I can leave…" he was interrupted by a whimper from Ren.

"No, you can tell him, Percy. I trust the both of you." She sighed, face still buried in my chest. My heart was pounding and hurting at the same time. I can't believe her mom would ever hurt her.

"Close the door, Grover. It's kind of private." I gave in. I couldn't help it. It was something about Ren that made me do anything I could for her. Once Grover closed the door and situated himself on his bed, I told him what was going on.

He could believe it either. His face was dark red and he burst out into a long, long rant about how horrible her mom was. It was true. I didn't mind at all and soon enough Rennie's tears stopped flowing. But then she said something disturbing.

"My mother said that my father left because of me. Do you guys think that's true?" she quietly asked, looking up at us. Grover had stopped mid-rant and his face turned an ashen color. His eyes looked like they were watering and he got up from his bed. He hobbled over to us and we had a group hug; it seemed to cheer Ren up a bit.

"Ren, my dad's not around either. I know how it feels, but you can't believe that your dad left because of you." I said, feeling at a loss. The look in her bright silver eyes was…haunting to say the least. She looked almost empty, but when I said those words she…I dunno…exploded into life.

"Yeah, Ren. I mean…who would want to leave you? You're one of the kindest people I've ever met." Grover added, earning him a big grin and a hug. She looked up at me and smiled softly, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks, guys." She said, hopping down from my bed. I couldn't just let her leave so I reached out and grabbed her wrist.

"Ren…I know it isn't much, but you can come talk to me if things get hard at home, okay?" I said, and with that her eyes lit up like…like…oh there's nothing to describe it. She was just very pretty – even with tear tracks staining her cheeks.

* * *

_**But who would want to describe me? That moment, when Percy said that he wanted me to talk to him if Mother abused me again…I swear I could have died happy. That was probably where I began seeing my best friend in a new light.**_

* * *

Later on I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. I was worried about Rennie; she was clinging to me more often – not that I minded – but it was a sort of cause for alarm. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancyh Bobofit and her friends because they kept saying the wrong things about us. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. Ren wasn't in this class to calm me down. I called my English teacher an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine. But then…I thought about Ren and her huge tear filled silver eyes. I felt bad. I let her down. The only time we would see each other is when we were both home at the same time. I couldn't comfort her when she needed it.

On the other hand, I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet…there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm room window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Ren the most of all. Sure, she liked to cling to me a lot. Sure, she hated violence and usually ended up hurt because she refused to fight back. Sure, she was quiet and pale, but I found all of those flaws kind of…endearing. They kind of made her seem…innocent. Now my heart kind of hurt because I knew I'd be leaving her.

I'd miss Latin class, too – Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week I got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. With Ren's help of course. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about his subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

* * *

_**I believed in Percy as well. I helped him with his final even though I had enough to study for. When I was in his room one day when we were studying…I found out that he wasn't going to be back the next year. My heart was crushed. I mean, we were only twelve, but I just couldn't believe I wouldn't see him ever again unless we saw each other at our apartments.**_

* * *

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology _across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old-eyes and Ren's wide silver eyes as she helped me with this stuff before she had to study for her own exams. _I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson_.

Ren's voice echoed in my head as well. I could literally hear her calmly explaining things to me in her quiet and smooth voice.

I took a deep breath and with Rennie's voice in my head I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

In the middle of the hallway, near the stairs, I ran into Ren. Literally. We both stumbled back and she landed hard on her back – I didn't know I had enough strength to knock someone over. We looked at each other and started laughing, but I was careful when I picked her up. I hate to admit it, but I've been treating her like she's so fragile lately.

"What are you doing here, Percy?" she asked me with a slight laugh. I noticed she had a book in her hands.

"I was going to see Mr. Brunner. You?" I asked her, entranced by her sparkling silver eyes.

"I borrowed this book on mythology from Mr. Brunner. Heh, want to go to his room together?" she asked me, showing me the book on mythology. I smiled, holding out my hand for her to take. She smiled brightly and grabbed my hand, entwining our fingers together.

We walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

We were three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. I looked between Ren and the door, but she obviously didn't know what was going on, either. We decided to listen and go in after they were done talking. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "…worried about Percy and Eirene, sir."

Yeah. **I **was the only one, aside from Grover when he was talking to her, who could call her Ren.

We froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear one of your best friends talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer, inadvertently pulling Rennie behind me.

"Percy, it's not nice to eavesdrop." She whispered, looking worried. Obviously she didn't hear Grover say our names.

"They're talking about us, Ren. I want to hear what they have to say." I whispered back. She sighed and we inched even closer.

"…alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the _school_! Now that we know for sure, and _they_ know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing them," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more, but perhaps Eirene is ready."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he _saw_ her attack Eirene. He saw the Kindly One attack his best friend. And Eirene! She was hurt, wasn't she?"

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"What about Eirene?" Grover inquired with a shaky voice.

"We can talk to her after exams." Mr. Brunner softly said.

"Sir, I…I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall…Keep an eye on Eirene until the end of exams."

The mythology book dropped out of Ren's hand and hit the floor with a thud. I quickly looked at her and noticed that her hand was shaking and her eyes were wide.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart was hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. Ren had no choice but to follow me since our fingers were still intertwined.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside, pulling Rennie with me. She was shaking more now than ever so I pulled her in my arms as we pressed ourselves up against the wall next to the door.

A few seconds later I heard a slow _clop-clop-clop_, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside our door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck and Ren pressed her face into my chest, letting out a muffled whimper. It wasn't quite loud enough for someone outside the room to pick up.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke, "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn…"

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever, but I wanted to make sure Ren had calmed down. She still seemed like she was nervous or something.

"Ren…are you alright?" I asked her. The office we were in was kinda small now that I looked around.

"No…Percy, I'm claustrophobic…" she whimpered and I gasped. No wonder she was shaking like a leaf!

"Wow, I'm so sorry. I should have found a bigger place for us to hide…" I said as she clung to me harder. After a few more moments we slipped out into the hallway and made our way upstairs to our respective dorms. I gave her one more reassuring hug and we parted ways.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful," He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just…tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about Ren and me behind our backs. They thought we were in some kind of trouble…and they'd be talking to Ren after exams.

* * *

_**I couldn't help but tremble and shake when Percy dragged me into that small office. Like I told you, readers, before I was – and still am – claustrophobic. The look n his face when I told him was kind of funny, though. He looked like a fish out of water. Percy was definitely reassuring, though. He even held me when we were hiding from Mr. Brunner. I was scared, but Percy was there. He was my rock at that moment.**_

* * *

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before with Ren, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's…it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. Ren's silver eyes were flashing and I think I caught a hint of tears.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean…" Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say… you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be –"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

"Percy-"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were _rich_ juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. My main concern was making sure Rennie would be alright when her mom starts beating on her again.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about Ren and where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only two people I dreaded saying good-bye to were Grover and Ren, but I was in luck. I didn't have to. Both of them had booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. Rennie, who had curled up in a ball next to me, fell asleep with her head in my lap. She had originally had her head on my shoulder, but I had pulled her down when we went over an abnormally large bump. I was occupying myself with running my hands through her hair – she'd be mad at me, but I unbound her hair from its braid. Her hair was soft.

You know…it occurred to me that Grover always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assume he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha – what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh…not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

He winced. "Look, Percy…I was just worried for you, see? And Ren, too. I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…"

"Grover-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…"

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." Said a soft voice from my lap. Looks like Rennie was awake the whole time.

Grover's ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer." And he leaned in so that Ren couldn't hear us.

"And take care of Ren, okay?"

My heart hurt. I could only manage a nod as I looked down at her face. Smiling softly I tore my eyes from her face and focused on the card. The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

_Grover Underwood  
Keeper_

_Half-Blood Hill  
Long Island, New York_

_(800) 009-0009_

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um…summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if we want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or…or if one of you need me."

"Why would we need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

"Percy, be nice. Grover's just trying to be friendly." Ren reminded me as her eyes opened. I blushed because I was still running my hands through her hair.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I – I kind of have to protect you two."

I stared at him and Ren turned her head so she was looking at him.

All year long, I'd gotten into fights, keeping bullies away from him, and protected Ren. I'd lost sleep worrying that they'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like was acting like he was the one who defended _us_.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting us from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.

"Eeew!" Rennie squealed as she sat up, covering her nose. It was kind of cute. Okay, it was really cute. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover, Ren, and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of county road – no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I jumped when Rennie appeared beside me and grabbed my hand, explaining that one of the gross and sweaty fat guys was giving her a weird look. I sent said gross and sweaty fat guy a look and pulled her over to the side of the road. Suddenly, she looked across the street and noticed the ancient women who were knitting the socks.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three woman looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at Ren and me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man –"

"Tell me they're not looking at you or Ren. They are, aren't they?"

"Yes, they are…its kind of strange if you ask me." my silver eyed crush commented.

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me? They're way too big for Rennie, here." I joked, electing a laugh from the black-purple streaked haired girl. It was heaven – I loved when Ren laughed. It was like a cross between a burst of laughter and giggling rolled into one. Sort of like 'bah-haha' and it was so carefree.

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors – gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath. Ren's hands suddenly went slack and her eyes went empty – almost like she was transfixed. One of the old ladies pointed at her and held the string tight.

"No…" Grover whimpered, taking Ren's shoulders and shaking them. Suddenly, a bird startled the old lady who was holding the yarn. It was like Ren was breaking free from a spell and she turned towards me.

"Percy…I don't want to be here anymore." I stood there, baffled beyond belief.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said, "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!" Ren begged, tugging at my hand. Grover pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back. I could tell that the silver eyed girl wasn't going to leave me so she stayed as well.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me -no. They were watching **us**. Ren and me. They were looking at the both of us. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for – Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. Rennie whined and curled up into a ball on her seat again, putting her head in my lap. I didn't care, once again, and started to run my fingers through her now slightly damp hair.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling us?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies/ what is it about them, man? They're not like…Mrs. Dodds, are they?" Ren shivered when I mentioned Mrs. Dodds. I mean, I would too if I remembered a time she actually hurt me.

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." Ren quietly piped up. Something still seemed a bit strange with her.

Grover closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost – older.

"Yes. It was after-" Ren stopped talking and her eyebrows scrunched together. I guess she couldn't remember what happened.

"Yeah, it was after Ren stopped zoning out." But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening." Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Ren lives near you, right? Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover – that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

What scared me most wasn't the fact that he thought I was going to die – I wasn't in that same sort of trance that Rennie had been in. What scared me the most was that if that bird hadn't scared the old lady, then my best friend – and crush – would have never survived the bus ride home. My heart hurt just thinking about it.

* * *

_**When I found out who those three ladies actually were – I almost cried. I almost died and I didn't even know it. Looking back and reading what Percy wrote…I actually did cry. I actually bawled my eyes out. Percy has this thing where I can only read the stories if I'm alone – and that was a good thing. You see…I never knew these things would lead up to something horrible. I only thought the worst thing that would happen was that Percy was going to a different school come fall. Boy, was I wrong.**_


	4. Grover Loses Pants

**Okay, first things first. Vote on my Percy Jackson poll. It's kinda important, but I might just end up posting that series anyway.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with Percy Jackson. I do, however, own Eirene, aka Ren and Rennie.**

**Thanks to:**

**Smily Forever - Glad you like the story. I'll update as soon as I am able. =D**

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**for adding me to their alerts list.**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

**Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**

* * *

_**Things didn't go as easily as Percy wanted them to, but I wasn't going to just abandon him because I thought what he was doing was wrong. To tell you the truth I thought that Grover was being a little creepy as well. He was being 'mysterious' and that kind of brought up the red flag alerts. Usually when someone is being mysterious with me…it's because they either end up hurting me or something else is going to happen…and it did.**_

* * *

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal. I dragged Ren with me, of course, but it was only because Grover was creeping me out and I could see that she was kind of nervous as well.

I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made us promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase and Ren's backpack, grabbed her hand again, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown. No use in making that sweet silver eyed girl pay for her own taxi when her mom obviously doesn't give her any money.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First." I told the driver.

When we got to the building I carried Rennie's backpack up the stairs for her. I even walked her to her apartment, but she had no key. Her mom made sure of that. She rang the doorbell – we lived in a nice enough apartment complex that had individual doorbells - and knocked on the door a few times, but she didn't answer…so I had her come with me. It was better than waiting outside for someone who might not show up.

Now, a word about my mother, before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world aside from Ren. I guess I would call her the best adult in the world. Ren would be the best kid in the world. Just a reminder, we are only twelve after all.

Since my mother is the best adult in the world only proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. Ren told me it was the same with her dad. She could just barely remember dark hair, dark eyes, and a warm smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him, though, because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married – like Ren's parents. She told me he was rich and important, like my dad. Our dad's relationships were kind of the same…except my mom took it better when dad disappeared. She told me – mom did – that dad set said across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. At least I know what happened to my dad. Ren knew that her dad left, but nothing other than that. Lost at sea was what my dad was.

Mom worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid. I knew she wouldn't object to Ren staying at our place until her mom got back, but…there was one problem.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along…well, when I came home is a good example. Ren wasn't that fond of Gabe, either. She met him outside the apartment once…when he slapped her butt when he was drunk.

I walked into our little apartment, fingers still entwined with Ren's, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home. And you brought a girlfriend with you."

"Where's my mom? And Ren's not my girlfriend."

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it. I was kind of embarrassed for Ren to see this, but her wide silver eyes weren't because of the situation. It was because this kind of situation was so close to hers. There was no _Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your live been in the last six months?_

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

"I'm sorry, Ren. Sorry that you had to see this." I mumbled, but I managed to do nothing but cause her to chuckle.

"No worries, Percy. It's the same at my house except my mother brings home her 'fling of the week'." She softly said. She squeezed my hand; I jumped because I almost forgot we were holding hands.

We looked back at the game. Gabe had managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow.

Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. I felt so horrible with Ren behind me. I didn't want her to witness anything that had to do with Gabe.

"What if I paid for the taxi? You don't know if the money is mine or not." Ren suddenly said from beside me. Her silver eyes were flashing in defiance of Gabe. He snorted, shaking his head.

"Doesn't matter, girly. You're his girlfriend, which makes your money his money. And his money is my money, so hand it over!" Gabe snorted again.

"Come on, Gabe," Eddie said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I _right_?" Gabe repeated his earlier comment.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. My face flushed red, embarrassed once again because Ren was here.

"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."

"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me, "I wouldn't act so snooty!" but I ignored him. Instead, I led Rennie to my room where we could hopefully have some peace. I was wrong, though.

I slammed the door to my room, wincing when I felt Ren flinch. If forgot that she didn't like violence. The room wasn't my real room, either. During school months, it was Gabe's 'study'. He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

"I'm sorry for them, again, Ren. When my mom's here it's different, but…" I trailed off, not knowing exactly what to say.

"Oh, don't worry about it, Percy. I kind of don't have a room. I sleep in the hall closet when I'm home, which isn't often. It's horrible, but I put up with it…especially with my Claustrophobia." She said and suddenly, I felt horrible for reacting the way I did. I never expected that someone I knew would have it worse than I did.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds attacking Ren, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic – how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone – something – was looking for me right now, or Ren, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"

She opened my bedroom door, and my fears melted.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe…in a way Rennie reminds me of her.

"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!" she then noticed Rennie sitting quietly on the bed. I flushed, wondering if she'd make a big deal about a girl in my bedroom.

"And you've brought home a friend! Hello, dear. I'm Sally Jackson, Percy's mother." She beamed with a wide smile, hugging Ren as well.

"Hello Mrs. Jackson. I'm Eirene, Ren, Grayfield. It's so nice to finally meet you." Ren softly said with a small smile. I loved it when she smiled, too. It made her face look a lot more pretty. I'm proud to say that I stole her hair tie so she couldn't tie back her hair until she got it back.

"Oh, you're so sweet. And you have such pretty eyes…and hair! Did you dye it?" my mom asked, looking at her curiously. Ren's eyes dulled a little; usually when she said it was natural nobody believed her.

"Both my eyes and hair color are natural, Ma'am." She explained softly, waiting for my mom to laugh. But that's the thing about my mom. She never laughed.

"Really? Well, I'd kill for that color!" she laughed, but she believed. It was the easygoing tone of her voice. Rennie noticed that as well. Her eyes lit up and she became more relaxed.

"I'm glad to meet one of Percy's friends, dear. You must come by more often." Mom implored with another little laugh.

"Mom, Ren lives down the hall. Two doors down." I said, smiling. A wide grin spread across my mom's bright face.

"Well, then! You have to come by for dinner no less than twice a week!" my mom said, giving Rennie a hug. A wide smile was on her face as well, making my heart flutter. Something must have been on my face because my mom looked at me with this 'look'. It was then that I looked her over.

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home. Of course I'd share the bag with Rennie. She was looking a little skinny lately.

* * *

_**I loved meeting Percy's mother for the first time. It was like I had finally met someone who accepted me for who I was…besides both Percy and Grover that is, and she was an adult. That was a plus. I had never met a woman who had a warmer personality than Sally Jackson and I wanted so much to replace my own mother with her.**_

* * *

We all sat together on the edge of the bed. Mom was on the side, I was in the middle, and Ren had her head in my lap again, but did I mind? No. I guessed she needed some closeness after her mom sent her away. Anyway, while we attacked the blueberry sour strings, mom ran her hand through my hand and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her. All three of us knew that.

From the only room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally - how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. Ren also told her what a good studier I was because she was the one who tutored me. I made some new friends, mainly Rennie and Grover. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.

Until that trip to the museum…apparently Ren remembered it to because when I mentioned the museum she shuddered terribly.

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged on my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn and how Ren was the only one to believe me, but I thought it would sound stupid.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights – same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal. Be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

I was so happy about leaving that I forgot that Ren was here…until I felt her head move from my lap. I suddenly felt really guilty and horrible. I had been celebrating with my mom, but I had forgotten that there were people who had nowhere to go.

"I should get going, Mrs. Jackson. My mother should be home by now. It was really nice to meet you." She said, gathering her backpack from the floor.

"Bye, Percy. Don't forget to visit." She said to me, kissing my cheek. When she pulled back I could see the absolute despair in her eyes. It was like she was dreading going back to her apartment.

I caught my mom's eye, but she only shook her head sadly. There was nothing we could do at the moment. Gabe sneered at Ren as she left, but she gave me one last hollow smile.

Anyway, mom turned back to Gabe with a forced smile on her face.

"I was on my way, honey." She told him. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

Well, on the bright side…I can make sure Rennie was okay.

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip…it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip…and maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now." Oh, how I wished Ren was still her with her calming aura. Then I would have been happier about apologizing to the fat man in front of me.

I wonder if there was a way to take Rennie with us.

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game.

"Thank you Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about…whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay? And you'll have to tell me more about Ren." She said, winking at me.

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes – the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride – as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and I figured must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

Once again I wondered what it would take for us to take Rennie on our trip with us.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking – and more important, his '78 Camaro – for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving motion toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

I was about to jump into the Camaro, but a familiar head of black and purple hair caught my eye. She ran down the stairs to the apartment building with a woman running behind her shouting, "You devil spawn, get back here and take your punishment!"

The familiar head of black and purple hair was Ren. She wasn't looking where she was going and managed to fall down the last six or seven concrete stairs in front of our apartment building. It was enough time for her mom to catch up with her.

"Why you little cretin! I've got you now…" her mother exclaimed, grabbing Ren by her lose hair. I felt an extreme pang of guilt; I still had her hair tie. My mom stood next to me with a worried and angered look on her face.

"Mom…" I muttered, looking up at her with pleading eyes. She nodded and started the Camero before I went over to help my best friend with her mom.

"Excuse me, Ma'am?" I asked before I saw the woman smack Ren across the face. I couldn't suppress my wince, especially since I saw a few areas of my silver eyed friend's skin that was bleeding.

"What do you want, boy?" she seethed at me, giving me a harsh glare. She still had her hand buried in Ren's hair.

"Uh…my name is Percy Jackson…I'm a friend of Ren's from school. Yancy Academy? And I was…well…wondering if she could come with me and my mom on our vacation. It's for a couple of days…and –" I didn't have to say any more. A relieved look came upon the older woman's face.

"Good. You can keep her. I definitely don't want her. Not after she made my one true love leave me!" she shrieked, shoving her in my direction. I deftly caught her with a grunt, saving her from falling to the pavement again. Ren turned to look at me with wide, scared eyes. My heart started hurting again; it seemed like it would do that every time Ren was hurt or scared.

"So she can come with us?" I queried in a timid voice. It was best not to make the older woman angry with me.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I don't really care. I've got company comin' in ten minutes. Bye." She said before turning and walking into the building. I sighed and maneuvered Ren into the Camaro, telling my mom to step on it. Once we were driving along the road my silver eyed best friend launched herself at me and started sobbing. Unlike before I wasn't too uncomfortable…I just wrapped my arms around her and dragged her into my lap, setting my chin on her head and rocking her to calm her down. I had seen this on some old television show and it had worked then.

We would worry about her wounds later.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place and I was sure that Ren would, too. There's so much open space that she wouldn't have a problem with her Claustrophobia.

As we got closer to Montauk, Mom seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea. Eventually, Ren calmed down and fell asleep in my lap.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls – Ren seemed to enjoy that quite a bit – and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

I…guess I should explain the blue food, huh?

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This – along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano – was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

When it got dark Ren seemed to get a bit happier. We made a fire and sat around it, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told us stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told us about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk – my father. But, before I could open my mouth, however, Ren beat me to it.

"Mrs. Jackson…if it's not too much to ask…what was Percy's father like?" she quietly asked in her shy, innocent way. Mom's eyes got all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Ren." She said. Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, Percy, and his green eyes." Ren had a small smile on her face, but her eyes held a bit of longing. I bet she was wondering what her own father was like.

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean…when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But…he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember…something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

"It's the same with me…but I obviously remember black hair…black eyes…but a warm smile." Ren commented, furrowing her eyes in confusion. I knew what that felt like. The confusion, I mean.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me…

I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?" Ren's face fell as she scooted closer to me. It was like she was comforting me in her own quiet way.

Mom pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think…I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out. Not only was Ren going through the SAME situation – her mom not wanting her – but I also must have seemed like a total heel. My heart hurt as I felt her flinch.

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I _have_ to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said – that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said. I felt Ren's silver eyes on me as I continued to sulk. I didn't know what was going on through her head, but she pulled away from me…far away. I didn't want that. I wanted her next to me.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. If we're all the same then we're no different than each other. To stand out – to be unique – is better because you can be appreciated for just being…you." Ren whispered as she stood up and walked away, but before she got too far she turned.

"I like you _because_ you're not normal. Remember that." She said and went down to the beach again.

"Percy…you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me – all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad – brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that – a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

Ren had also told me things that happened to her. Someone kidnapped her when she was seven, but when the car stopped and she got out, she realized he had leathery skin and blood red eyes.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword after she attacked Rennie. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling that the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy – the place your father wanted to send you. And I just…I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad – who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born – talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before? Could…could Ren come with me? Whatever was happening to me seemed to be happening to her, too.

"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I – I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp…"

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

After that we got up to find Rennie because the wind was starting to get nasty – sand plus wind equals stinging pain – and found her with her hands over her head as she stared at the crashing water. Tears were falling from her bright silver eyes and she was looking up at the stars. She yawned and my mom smiled, going up to her and gently easing her from the sand. Soon after we went to bed.

That night I had a vivd dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _no!_

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

Rennie was already awake. She jumped as another bolt of lightning lit up the room. Apparently she was afraid of lightning. With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice – someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed while Ren let out a little shriek, launching herself towards me and wrapping her arms around my waist. I held her protectively as my mom opened the door.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't…he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me and Rennie in terror – not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain.

"What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. All I knew was that my Ren was trembling beside me and that I had to protect her.

"_O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"_ he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you _tell_ her!"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because grover didn't have his pants on – and where his legs should be…where his legs should be…

"Percy…does Grover…is he…?" I heard Ren ask me in some sort of shock. I could only numbly nod my head.

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "_Percy_. Tell me _now_!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of the lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. All three of you. Take care of Ren, Percy. _Go_!"

I nodded, pulling Rennie up beside me and lacing my fingers with hers. I pulled her behind me, carefully making sure she was okay while we were running. It was the one thing I was good at: taking care of Ren.

Grover ran for the Camaro – but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feat. There were cloven hooves.

* * *

_**Believe me, Percy wasn't the only one who was shocked that night. What he said and how he acted during the bond fire struck a chord in me, but I knew that wasn't how he acted normally. I don't know exactly what he was feeling – and I have a sense I will never truly understand Percy Jackson, but when he took my hand and ever so carefully made sure I made it to the car…it was the safest I had felt in a long, long time.**_


	5. Mother Teaches Bullfighting

**Woo, Alright then. Here's chapter four!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with Percy Jackson. I only own Eirene, aka Ren and Rennie.**

**Thanks to:**

**Howlingwolf26 - What about Ren that you don't like? I'm not mad, just curious.**

**Smiley Forever - Thanks!**

**MusicBeeQueen - Love that you love it!**

**Anonymous - Thanks ^^**

**PoisonLavaLamp - Yay, Grover.**

**

* * *

**

Chapter Four

**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting**

* * *

_**I was terrified that something was going to happen while we were on the run. I wasn't just Claustrophobic, I was deathly afraid of lightning. I guess I should tell you all my fears now to save time. I'm afraid of heights and deep water…the kind where you can't see the bottom. I will tell you that having Percy keep his arm wrapped around my waist the entire time calmed me down a lot, but he didn't seem to mind it when I buried my face in his neck every time I saw lightning flash. Let me tell you that Percy Jackson is a wonderful person.**_

* * *

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning I felt Ren jump beside me. She still had her head buried in my neck, but I was looking at Grover sitting in the free space in the backseat. I was wondering if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom…know each other?" I could feel Ren's head moving as she looked at Grover, expecting an answer.

Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you. Your mom, Ren, knew I was watching you, too, but she told me to let you die. There was no way in the underworld I was going to do that." He said, giving her a fond pat on the shoulder.

"Watching us?" I questioned.

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily, giving us a smile. Ren smiled back and gave Grover a hug, but squeaked and buried herself back into my arms during the next thunder clap.

"I _am_ your friend." Grover reassured.

"Um…what _are_ you, exactly?

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best male friend is a donkey –"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "_Blaa-ha-ha!"_

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"He's a goat." Ren mumbled from her awkward clinging position. I admit that I'd jumped; I would have forgotten that she was there completely if she hadn't had her arms wrapped around my waist.

"I'm a goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a _goat_ from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"_Blaa-ha-ha_! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like…Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a _myth_, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?" Ren shifted to look at Grover as my mouth dropped open.

"So you _admit_ there was a Mrs. Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why-?" Ren's voice was cut off as Grover quickly answered her. The betrayal in her voice was making him flinch.

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. He was pleading with his eyes for us to believe him. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One a hallucination. But it was no good. You two started to realize who you are."

"Who we – wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Percy, Ren." My mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. we have to get you two to safety."

"Safety?" Ren quietly asked, breaking away from me. "Safety from what? Whose chasing us?" she continued with worried eyes.

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Grover!" mom exclaimed when she heard Ren's whimper.

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination, not like Ren. I could never dream up something this weird…not that Rennie's dreams were weird…well, you get my drift. I wrapped my arms tighter around her light frame and braced myself as mom went faster.

My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrowed road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I heard Ren ask as she resituated herself on the seat next to me. Her butt was on the seat, but her legs were draped over mine.

"The summer camp I told you guys about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for our sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go." I felt Ren tense in my arms, but my anger was flaring up again.

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn." I said, but I felt Ren's head shake in denial.

"I don't think they were just old ladies, Percy." I heard her mumble.

"It's because they weren't old ladies." Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means – the fact that they appeared in front of you two? They only do that when you're about to…when someone's about to die. And if it weren't for that bird that startled one of them…Ren would have died." I felt Ren stiffen in my arms, but my suspicions were confirmed. It was horrible, knowing that she would have died.

"Wait, whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in _me_. I would have died, too."

"I meant _you_, like 'someone.' Not you, _you_."

"Boys!" my mom said. Ren was giving us a disapproving glare as well. I remembered that she didn't like violence…and, well, arguing is a form of violence.

Mom pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid – a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where _there_ was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness – the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really _hadn't _been human. She'd meant to kill me. She almost did kill Ren!

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner…and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. Ren whimpered and there was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!, _and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. I remember feeling Ren's fingers tighten around mine before they were suddenly gone.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Percy!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay…"

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Wait, what about Ren! I looked around and nearly panicked when I saw the state she was in. Her eyes were closed and there was blood running down her pale face from a cut on her forehead. She must have rammed her head into something. Mom was hovering over us, trying to wake her up.

"Ren, Ren…come on, Rennie, wake up. That's a good girl." She murmured. I watched with baited breath as Ren's eyes fluttered open. She groaned and sat up, holding her head and trying to wipe the blood from her face.

"What happened?" she softly murmured, squeezing her eyes shut. She must have had a headache.

We didn't have time to stall because I just thought of the lightning that was crashing outside. It was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to Ren was a motionless lump.

"Grover!" I exclaimed, startling Ren out of her semi-conscious state.

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you half barnyard animal, you're one of my best friends and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Percy," my mother said, "we have to…" her voice faltered.

I looked back and found Ren's hand, giving it a slight squeeze. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Take Ren and get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side! Hurry and take Ren with you!" my mother told me.

"Percy – you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"_What?" _both Ren and I exclaimed.

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree se meant: a huge, white House Christmas tree-sized pie at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too." Ren let out a little sob as we watched my mom's face.

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You _are_ coming with us. Help us carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder. Ren was still sobbing quietly and my hand tightened around hers.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he _couldn't _be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands – huge meaty hands – were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head…was his head. And the points that looked like horns…

"He doesn't want all of us," my mother told me. "He wants you two. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But…" Ren pleaded with her.

"We don't have time, dear. Go. Please."

I got mad, then – mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull…and I even got mad at innocent Ren. I flung her hand away from mine.

I climbed across her and Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you –"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover." Ren scrambled out behind me, helping to support Grover. He was surprisingly light, but Ren and I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to our aid.

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet-waist high grass. Ren and I were on one side and mom was on the other.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man_ magazine – bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear – I mean, bright Fruit of the Looms – which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns – enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

"It's…it's the…" Ren stuttered as her eyes widened in shock. She knew what it was right off the bat because she was much more interested in mythology than I was…but it didn't mean that I didn't know it was dangerous. My silver eyed best friend stumbled a bit before regaining her footing, but I was worried about her.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

* * *

_**When we first met the Minotaur I didn't believe he was real, either. All I knew was that I was terrified, cold, wet, hurt, and needed to get Grover to safety. I thought he might have been a hallucination because I hit my head. My forehead was still bleeding as we were trudging along and the blood was stinging my eye, but I knew I couldn't give up. If we were forced to fight…then I would protect everyone as best I could, but I didn't know if I had it in me at the time. That night was just horrible.**_

* * *

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill ou."

"But he's the Min-"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still too far – a hundred yards uphill at least.

Ren and I glanced behind us again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows – or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," Rennie crooned to him, petting his curly and wild hair back. He sighed, but I secretly wished that she would do that to me.

"Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to stop. The gas tank exploded, causing Ren to shriek in terror.

_Not a scratch,_ I remembered Gabe saying.

Oops.

"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way – directly sideways. He can't change directions vey well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But –"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must have been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said!"

I didn't want to split up, but I had a feeling she was right - it was our only chance. Ren was insistently tugging on my arm until I gave up and sprinted to the left with her, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

Ren shrieked and the fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, pushed Ren to one side and I jumped to the other.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time. My heart froze. He was looking at Ren, who had rolled back down the hill when I pushed her. She was near my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept alternating his vision between Ren and my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"Run, Percy! Take Ren and go!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!"

Suddenly, the monster roared in pain as someone climbed upon his back. I stared, mouth open and eyes wide, as Ren started pulling on the bull-man's hair. It was probably the most she could do since she hated violence…but mom was in danger. She must have seen that. He screeched, thrashing around, but he never let go of mom.

The bull-man took his other hand and grabbed Ren by the back of her shirt, throwing her as hard as he could away from him. She screamed louder than I had ever heard someone scream as she sailed past me, hitting the tree with a sickening crack. She slid down the tree, landing face first in the dirt with her arm at a disturbingly odd angle.

I looked back to my mother and she caught my eyes, managing to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply…gone.

"No!"

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs – the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons and attacked Ren. Now, Ren was hurt again because she protected my mother…and it was in vain.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my male best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Raaarrrr!" the monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.

I had an idea – a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment. I happened to forget one very important thing. Ren was still lying unconscious next to the tree. I was blinded in rage.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to doge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

I faintly heard a feminine voice shouting, but the monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

I looked up and blew a breath of relief when I saw that Ren had somehow managed to crawl over to Grover, who was groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bit my own tongue off.

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then – _snap!_

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I heard Ren scream my name as I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife. I felt someone at my side and jumped, looking up to see Ren's face. How had she gotten there so quickly? I didn't have time to wonder.

The monster charged.

My sight was still a bit blurry, but I felt myself being pushed to the side, heard a yelp of pain, and, suddenly, my vision was clearer than ever before. Ren had gotten hurt protecting me…

The monster threw Ren to the side and couldn't get a good look at her, but I saw the blood gushing from her side. It was just like before. He barreled toward me, but I sidestepped. I was furious. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage. Then, I ran to Ren's side.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the bull-man roar in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate – not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

Ren. She was the only thing on my mind now; Grover was moaning, but Ren was pale. Her hair was flowing around her head, but some of it was stained with her blood. Blood. I had to stop the bleeding. I pushed against the large scrape on her side, but I didn't know if it was a bad wound or not.

The monster was gone.

The rain stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my hands were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish and Ren was hurt. She stirred, opening her eyes. They were laced with pain, but she sat up anyway, slapping away my hands from her side.

"Grover needs help." She said, trying to hide the pain in her voice. I wanted to help her, not Grover, because she was the one bleeding so horribly, but she was also very stubborn. I had no choice but to do as she said.

"Stay here." I ordered her, giving her a bone crushing hug before I went to my other best friend. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and over to Ren. She was standing on shaky legs and together we managed to stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, Ren was crying, and I was calling for my mother, but we held onto Grover. We weren't going to let him go.

We were almost there. Ren fell on the wooden porch, too exhausted from blood loss to go on. I was going to drop down to my knees next to her, but the last thing I remember is collapsing on the wooden porch as well, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl – not as pretty as Ren, though, in my opinion – her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at us, and the girl said, "He is the one. He must be…for her sake."

I wondered who 'she' was.

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."

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_**I didn't know that I was the 'she' they were talking about then, but I can't tell you guys much here. I was in horrible pain and the brink of unconsciousness. I felt horrible that I wasn't able to save Percy's mother, but I was satisfied that I was able to save him from being injured further than he already was. But…we were finally safe.**_


	6. I Play Pinochle with a Horse

**Okay, you guys know the drill. Read, review, vote on my poll, be happy.**

**Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, I dont own Percy Jackson, I only own Eirene.**

**Thanks to: **

**DreamingStorm - lol no worries.**

**MusicQueenBee - I'm sorry if I get her out of character in the future...but since I'm not pairing her with Percy she can't be all mushy with him. You understand, right? Because I don't hate her or anything...**

**SeaweedGirl1 - lol interesting name. Love that you like my story XD and I'll keep updating as long as you want me to.**

**PoisonLavaLamp - Thanks for reviewing. =P**

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Chapter Five

**I Play Pinochle with a Horse**

* * *

_**I was so scared that Percy was hurt more than he let on. Of course I was injured, but I didn't care. I was more worried that I'd lose Percy…I didn't think I could handle that. I felt ashamed that I couldn't do more to help his mom when she…puffed in a cloud of smoke slash ash. I had the weirdest dream…but I was surrounded by darkness. I was warm, but I couldn't see anyone else…but I could hear a deep and warm voice whispering to me.**_

* * *

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. I was worrying about Ren, but she wasn't in the same room I was in. I wanted to know what happened to her – if she was alright – but I was just so confused.

The girl with curly blonde hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

I managed to croak, "What?"

She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

I didn't know what was going on, but I do know that I wanted to see Ren.

"Ren…" I croaked out…then as an afterthought, "I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't…"

Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone, and my head was once again filled with worried thoughts of Ren.

A husky blonde dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes – at least a dozen of them – on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands. My thoughts went to Rennie again, but I was out like a light a few moments later.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.

My hand felt so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Careful," a familiar voice said.

Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.

The door to the house creaked open and someone shuffled out. Grover gasped and was immediately by the person's side. He helped her to the chair next to mine. It wasn't then until I actually realized that the girl was Ren. Her appearance had me shocked. Her long black and purple hair was tied back in a customary braid, but she had bruises all over her face and one arm. The other was in a sling, wrapped in bandages. She smiled softly at me and it was like all of my worries melted away…except for the fact that she was still hurt.

"Hey, Percy. How are you feeling?" she quietly asked me with her melodious voice. It made me close my eyes. Maybe I'd had a nightmare when the car flipped. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. It explained why Ren was hurt. And…

"You two saved my life," Grover said. "I…well, the last I could do…I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.

Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood.

It hadn't been a nightmare.

"The Minotaur," I said.

"Um, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."

"Yes. You are correct, Percy." And I could practically hear Ren's voice in my ear. Maybe it was because she had pulled her chair over to my side and gripped one of my hands in one of her smaller ones. The simple contact calmed me right down, but I still didn't want to believe that this was real.

Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"My mom. Is she really…"

He looked down and I felt Ren give my hand a squeeze.

"I'm so sorry, Percy. I tried to help…but I'm just not good at fighting." My silver eyed best friend apologized to me, but I was staring across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm – I'm the worst satyr in the world."

He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.

"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.

Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it. Everything was real. I could definitely feel Ren's hand encased in my much larger one so it must be real.

Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with…Smelly Gabe? No. that would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I would do something. And then maybe I could convince Ren to run away with me. I don't know where we would stay, but I'd get a job and support us. Ren could continue to go to school…I'd figure it out somehow.

Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid – poor goat, satyr, whatever – looked as if he expected to be hit.

I said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was. I was supposed to **protect** you."

"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"

"No. but that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least…I was."

"But why…" I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Whoa, don't strain yourself, Percy." I heard Ren chastise me gently as Grover helped me hold my glass. Rennie put the straw to my lips and helped me drink. I winced when saw that cast on her arm.

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies – my mom's cookies, homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.

Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice-cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asked.

I nodded.

"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.

"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."

His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just…wondered."

"Chocolate chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."

He sighed. "And how do you feel?"

"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards." My heart clenched when I heard Rennie giggle. I was happy I could get her to laugh.

"That's good." Grover said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."

"What do you mean?"

He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."

Ren helped me up and we went on our way. The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.

My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go. Just like I wasn't going to let Ren out of my sight.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath. I heard the sharp intake that Ren made, so I knew that I wasn't alone in being surprised.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply could process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture – an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena – except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets and an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.

"Oh my…those are pegasi." Ren said, covering her mouth in awe. I snorted quietly, realizing she rhymed, but she didn't even acknowledge my rudeness.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them. As we walked closer I could fell Rennie become more nervous.

The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels – what do you call them hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to us. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron…"

He pointed to the guy whose back was to us.

First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Is that Mr. Brunner?" Rennie asked from beside me. At Grover's nod and smile I called out his name.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at us. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers 'B'.

"Ah, good, Percy. Eirene." He said. "Now we have four for pinochle and someone to cheer for us."

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. But, before, I sat down, I helped Ren jump up to sit on the railing. Then I returned to the seat that was offered to me. Mr. D looked at me again and sighed, again.

"Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Hlaf-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you two."

"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl sitting near Ren.

She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy while Grover tended to Eirene. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy and Eirene's bunks? We'll be putting them in cabin eleven for now."

Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."

She was probably the same age as Rennie and I, maybe a couple of inches taller than me, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blonde hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were a startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

I caught her eyeing Rennie up, too, and my muscles automatically tensed. When they did her eyes snapped back to me, as if daring me to do something about it. I was wary; she might be one of the ones who would pick on Ren because she hated to fight.

She was looking at me and glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, _you killed a minotaur! _Or _Wow, you're so awesome! _Or something like that.

Instead, she said, "You drool when you sleep." That had Rennie chuckling and it drew a small smirk from the blonde girl. Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"

"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. Ren cocked her head to the side in confusion and I have to admit that was really cute.

"Not Mr. Brunner? Then what should we call you, sir?" she quietly asked. I have to say, even though she was probably feeling overwhelmed, like me, she was still polite and calm.

"I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron." And a cute confused expression appeared on her face.

"Okay." And I was totally confused. I looked at the director, curious about his name. "And Mr. D…does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." And Rennie just giggled at my embarrassment once again.

"I must say, Percy, Eirene," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you two alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to some potential campers. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?"

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct the two of you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you two were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to…ah, take a leave of absence."

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

"You came to Yancy just to teach us?" I asked.

Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. We were going to talk to Ren's mother after the school year ended, but then she went with you on your vacation and you were attacked. Nevertheless, the both of you made here alive, and that's always the first test.

"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You _do_ know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I'm afraid not, _sir_," he said.

"Sir," I repeated, trying not to laugh at the expression on Rennie's face. Her eyes were cross eyed and her lips were puckered up. Although she was funny, I was liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he told me, "It is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all _civilized_ young men to know the rules."

"I'm sure the boy can learn." Chiron said. Mr. D just grunted and looked at Rennie.

"You, girl? Do you know how to play?" he got no response out of her, but a shake of the head. She was shy around new people.

"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach us?"

Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, _I_ was his star student. He expected _me_ to have the right answer.

"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing? Eirene? Did your mother mention anything at all about your father?" and almost immediately Rennie's face fell.

"She said he left because of me, blamed me for things whenever I asked about him." she mumbled, turning her face to the side.

"My mother…she said…" I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I asked.

He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

"Orientation film?" Ren quietly asked, voice perked with interest. Of course, she would be interested in things like this. The strange and unusual…not that there was anything wrong with that.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy, Eirene, you know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know" – he pointed to the horn in the shoe box – "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods – the forces you call the Greek gods – are very much alive."

* * *

_**Yeah, right. My first thought was 'how could the Greek Gods possibly be alive? If they were real then they would be living in, y'know, Greece? And not the United States? I simply couldn't grasp that this was what had been happening to us for the past few months…but what did this have to do with our missing fathers?**_

* * *

I stared at the others around the table, eventually meeting Ren's wide, non-blinking eyes. I waited for somebody to yell, _Not! _But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" he cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron said. "God – capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Ah, gods, in plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?" Ren asked with her usual small voice.

"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."

"Zeus," I said "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."

And there it was again – distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, I fi were you.

"But they're stories," I said. "They're – myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Percy…think about this for a moment. What if…what if it was possible that what Chiron was saying is real? Think of the name 'Chiron'. Isn't that Greek?" she asked me. What she said made me think, but this was still absurd!

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson" – I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody –"What will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals – they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy, and that girl for that matter, and tell me."

I didn't like Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if…he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.

"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that _immortal_ means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time.

Rennie adopted a sort of sad look on her face, but then if you had to live forever with the feelings she experienced on a daily basis I'd feel sad to. I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.

"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people will call _you_ a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers? Or call Eirene a myth to explain why little girls run away from home?"

My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason and I could see that he succeeded in angering Ren. Her face was set into a scowl, but then softened. She couldn't stay mad at anyone if her life depended on it. I wasn't going to let him make me angry, though. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe! At least the girl actually believes." He said.

"You do?" I asked Rennie. She only shrugged and replied with, "Anything is possible, Percy."

Mr. D waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped and Ren's face broke into a large grin, but Chiron hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." he looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time – well, she was really pretty, and I couldn't stay away – the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha! Absolutely unfair."

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

"And…" I stammered, "your father is…"

"_Di immortals_, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."

I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed as if Mr. D were his master. I opened my mouth, but before I could properly name him, Ren beat me to it.

"You're Dionysus," she said "The god of wine." Mr. D started, like he forgot that she was there. He turned to her, eyeing her up and down.

"Smart girl. I believe I shall spare you the 'well, duh!' I was reserving for Percy Jackson over here." He jerked his head towards me. She flushed, unused to the praise…or what probably stood as praise from such a jerk of a god.

"You're a god." I blurted out.

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

"Percy…yes. He's a god. It's a bit terrifying, but it is real." Ren's small voice calmed me down, but I was sitting in front of a god!

He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straightjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life…and I shuddered, thinking about all the things he could do to Rennie as well.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, _again_, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment. I saw Ren's face go from amused to worried in a split second, but she couldn't do anything. Her face betrayed her struggling emotions, but what could she do? She was going up against a god!

Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. Take your little girlfriend with you and mind your manners."

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" Ren asked Chiron with worry etched into her voice.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been…ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here in America?" Ren asked as my mouth hung open.

"Well, certainly, Eirene. The gods move with the heart of the west."

"The what?" Man, did I sound stupid.

"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western Civilization'. Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know – or as I hope you know, since you passed my course – the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps – Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on – but the same forces, the same gods."

"And then they died." I still sounded stupid, but at least I got Ren to giggle again.

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in the Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not – and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either – America is now the heart of the flame. It Is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

Ren was staring at Chiron; it was the most he had ever said at one time when he wasn't in class, teaching.

It was all too much, especially the fact that we seemed to be included in Chiron's _we _as if we were a part of some club.

"Who are you, Chiron? Who…who are we?"

Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven along with Eirene. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt.

At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear was not underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. Rennie's gasp echoed as we realized the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. a leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

"Chiron, you're…" Ren whispered in awe.

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where it's neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson, Eirene Greyfield. Leet's meet the other campers."

* * *

_**You could definitely tell that I was shocked by this. The whole situation made me want to keel over in a dead faint. I mean, hello! Dionysus! Chiron was a centaur! Too many exciting things were happening to me, and maybe, just maybe…I could find out who my father was.**_


	7. Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

****

Alright, here we go. Just to warn you guys, I'm working on two new stories, but I won't be posting them until I'm at least done with one or two of my current ones. I WILL finish all of my stories, guys (except Alternate Reality, which is on an indefinate hiatus).

**Russian Lullaby - I know right. I just can't imagine any of them trying to be English in the Eliazabethian era. lol**

**MusicBeeQueen - ooh, ouch. I haven't had mine pulled yet, but i'm not looking forward to it.**

**GothicAngelsAndBlackRoses - Really? Aww, that makes me so happy to hear! Ren likes you, too.**

**I'mAnIdiotButWhoCares - No problem! Thanks for the review.**

**taterandtotsrule - Thanks for the review!**

**xXxScarletxXxSakuraxXx - Uh, plot not so orignal (unless you count the added character) since its just an AU of the original story, but thanks for the review!**

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom**

* * *

_**Sure, I was creeped out by the fact that my old Latin teacher was part horse, but I was more awed by the fact that he was supposed to be a mythical creature. A Centaur! And a Greek God was right in front of me! He wasn't exactly what I expected of the God of Wine, Dionysus, but to think a god was sitting right in front of me. Perhaps now….perhaps I can find out who my father is…and why he left me to bear the pain my mother inflicted upon me. **_

* * *

Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, through I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.

We passed the volleyball pit and I kept a tight hold on Rennie's hand the entire time. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the Minotaur horn I was carrying in my free hand. Another said, "That's _them_."

Most of the campers were older than Rennie and I. their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange Camp Half-blood T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, that's Ren's department, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized – four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched. I moved my hand from Ren's, instead wrapping it around her waist, and shuddered.

"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?" came Ren's quiet voice. Apparently she had seen the shadow in the attic, too.

"No," Chiron said with finality. "Not a single living thing."

I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain. I felt my best friend shiver under my arm and pulled her along with us, but I had a feeling that she was still staring up at the attic window.

"Come along, Percy, Eirene." Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."

* * *

_**Hah. I know I was more than a little naïve, but even I knew that there was SOMETHING up in that attic. Even though I wanted to go and investigate, I didn't want Percy to let go of his hold from around my waist…it felt so good.**_

* * *

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told us the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants; they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

Rennie and I watched the satyr playing his pipe. I watched my best friend out of the corner of my eye and I was happy to see a content smile on her face. Her black and purple hair was flying behind us into the soft breeze and her silver eyes were shining. I was happy that she was happy. I looked back and we enjoyed the music of the satyr. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction. Like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean…he was a good protector. Really."

Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horse's back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that!" Ren protested, eyes widening as my arm instinctively wrapped tighter around her waist.

"I might agree with you," Chiron said to her. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate…ah…fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

"They can't do that. When we were in school, Grover was brave!" Ren burst out, silver eyes flashing in defiance. I was confused. When was he brave?

"How so?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.

"When I first met him…I was being attacked by a hoard of bullies. Perhaps they were demons or whatever from the underworld…but Grover protected me. He **was** brave…" she insisted, nodding her head with finality. I wanted to protest as well. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't coerced Ren, then we wouldn't have given him the slip at the bus station and he might not have gotten in trouble.

"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Chiron winced and Ren's bright eyes dimmed. "I'm afraid that **was** Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age…"

"How old is he?" Ren's soft voice asked.

"Oh, twenty-eight." My eyes must have bugged for I heard her soft laughter again.

"What! And he's in sixth grade?"

"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."

"That's horrible." Ren murmured, eyes showing her sadness.

"Quite." Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career…"

"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"

Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"

But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word _death_. The beginnings of an idea – a tiny, hopeful fire – started forming in my mind.

"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real…"

"Yes, child?" I had gotten the attention of Ren as well. Her wide eyes were boring into my face and I could feel a light flush taking over my skin.

"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?" Rennie gasped and Chiron's expression darkened.

"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now…until we know more…I would urge you to put that out of your mind."

"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?" my heart was literally pounding, but I calmed down when my best friend wrapped her arm around my waist as well.

"Come, Percy, Eirene. Let's see the woods."

* * *

_**I didn't know what he was talking about, with the Underworld and all that jazz, but I knew he was thinking something dangerous. Percy's mother just died and he found out that there was an Underworld…how could he not be thinking about her soul resting down there? Unless…unless his mother really isn't dead…but how could we figure that out?**_

* * *

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up a least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what" I asked. "Armed with what?"

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"Our own-?" Ren started, shocked.

"No," Chron said. "I don't suppose either of you do. I think a size five will do for Percy…and maybe a size two for you, Eirene. You're so…thin. I'll visit the armory later."

I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

"Sword and spear fights?" Ren asked, eyes wide.

"Don't worry, my dear. You can become a healer if you wish." And with that her posture relaxed…as did mine and I didn't even know that I had tensed up.

"There are cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

"What do you do when it rains?" I asked, triggering a giggle from Ren. Chrion looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.

"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

"Wow…they're huge…" my Rennie breathed as we looked up at them. except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike.

Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were my speed) and even an art center (which would entertain Ren for a long, long time).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"They're beautiful. And we get to stay in one of these?" Ren asked Chiron as she grasped my hand again.

"Yes, you two will be staying in the Hermes Cabin." He said. All was quiet for a little while until I guessed the names of the cabins.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed, nodding to the temples.

"Correct," Chiron said.

"Their cabins look empty." My silver eyed best friend murmured from beside me. It was like she was reading my mind.

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two." He said. Ren giggled and whispered 'rhyme' and I didn't realize what she was talking about until I realized that Chiron had rhymed.

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway, Ren right behind me, and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

Before he could pull us back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad whe Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along Percy, Eirene."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red – a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. I wrapped an arm around Ren's waist again, knowing that it made her feel protected, and cringed. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a sixe XXXL Camp Half-blood T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer, but I just squeezed Ren under my arm. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

I kept walking with Ren, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves.

"We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed. Little Rennie nodded her head as well as she looked around.

"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric fold, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."

"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really…" Ren's soft and inquisitive voice cut through the silence. I had been wondering the same thing, really. He smiled down at us. "_The_ Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Eirene, I am."

"But, shouldn't you be dead?" I blurted out, instantly feeling my cheeks warm.

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about _should_ be. The truth is, I _can't _be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish…and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list, but maybe Ren would like to. She's a great teacher and tutor. How else would I have passed Latin?

"Doesn't it ever get boring?"

"no, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

"Why depressing?"

Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

"Oh, look." He said. "Annabeth is waiting for us." The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled. When she looked at Ren, however, she gave her a small smile. Ren chuckled back – it was like they had an inside joke.

I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't even make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even in English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy and Eirene from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron us, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on _old_. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it…? A caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Chiron didn't go it. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him t hey all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy, Eirene. I'll see you two at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids while Ren stood back. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything…that was until Ren came in. They stared at her, eying her unique eye and hair colors and I swear I could see a couple of the guys blush.

Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson and Eirene Grayfield, meet cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome Percy, Eirene. You can have those two spots on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" I asked.

"You're undetermined," Lke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given Rennie and I. At least they were next to each other. We had nothing to mark it as our own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn that I had. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting to pick my pockets…but some of them were eyeing Rennie like they wanted to eat her…or do something else to her. She stayed beside me, hand clenched in my own.

"How long will we be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"We've already seen it." I protested.

"Come on."

She grabbed my wrist and dragged both Ren and I outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

* * *

_**I had no idea what was going on, but I knew one thing for sure. Some of those Hermes cabin guys were totally creeping me out. Luke was nice for the most part, but there was this lingering feeling of something…I couldn't put my finger on it, but it made my stomach churn.**_

* * *

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one." Ren's eyes widened in shock as Annabeth said this, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now despite the calming aura that Ren was giving off. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy with Ren's help…"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

I shook my head as Ren's grip on my hand tightens. "Percy, leave it alone." She whispered into my hear, but I was too far gone.

"Look, if the thing I fought really was _the_ Minotaur, the same one in the stories…"

"Yes."

"Then there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So…"

"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up." Ren was still trying to calm me down, and it was working for the most part, but my blood was still boiling.

"They don't have souls, like you and me. you can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a while lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form."

I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword…"

"The Fur…I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?" Ren asked in that quiet voice that I loved so much. Annabeth just smirked.

"He talks in his sleep." She said, jerking her thumb at me.

"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"

Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we _can_ say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or…your parent."

She stared at me, waiting for me to get it. I didn't, but Ren obviously did.

"But…what if your parent isn't one of the twelve here?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. Obviously Annabeth hadn't gotten that question before since her face held a puzzled look to it. She shrugged and turned back to me.

"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to." Ren squeezed my hand as I felt my heart give a jolt.

"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

"He's dead. I never knew him."

Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Percy."

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you say…"

"Because I know _you_. You or Eirene wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about us!" I growled.

"No?" she raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."

"How…"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too." I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD – you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are." She explained.

"You sound like…you went through the same thing?" Ren softly asked, looking down at her feet. It looked as if she was almost…ashamed.

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar."

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You two are half-bloods."

A half-blood.

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie! Two of 'em!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets. Ren cowered behind me, not liking the conflict that was sure to come with her.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said, "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

"_Erre es Korakas!_" Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!" through I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who are the two little runts?"

"Percy Jackson and Eirene Grayfield." Annabeth said, "Meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."

I blinked and Ren gasped. "Like…the war god?"

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy." The name got Ren giggling.

"Percy." I growled.

"Whateer. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse…" Ren tried to apologize.

"Stay out of it, newbie girl."

Ren looked pained, but she did stay out if it and I didn't really want her help. I mean, she hated conflict so she'd only do it to save me. She'd most likely get hurt in the process and then I'd feel guilty. I had to earn my own rep.

I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching and Ren was screaming at her to let me go. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking – as much as I _could_ think with Clarisse ripping my hair out – that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns. Ren followed us into the bathroom, demanding them to let me go, but I just told her to stay out of it.

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.

"Like's he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."

Her friends snickered.

Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.

Clarisse bent me over n my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go near that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me. I saw Ren staring at the floor in bewilderment, noticing the long black lines that were connecting her to Clarisse's friends. They were staring as straight as statues…and then I realized that their _shadows_ were connected.

"I can't move!" one shouted.

"Me either!" the other one shouted as well. Both of them struggled in vain.

I turned as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started to struggle harder against Ren's shadows. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water pushed against them. the showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning thim around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared and neither had Ren. They were dripping wet, but they hadn't been pushed out the door. They were standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock. Annabeth would look back and forth between us.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Annabeth said, "How did you two…"

"We don't know…do you, Percy?" Ren quietly said with a shaking voice. I shook my head.

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."

I probably should have let it go, but I said, "you want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin give, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Annabeth stared at us. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed or angry at me for dousing her.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," she said, "That I want you two on my team for capture the flag."

* * *

_**I had no idea that I could do that, but it explained why I felt so comfortable in the shadows. They were my friends and they gave me comfort, but was I really up for this 'Capture The Flag' game? I hate violence, remember?**_


	8. Our Dinners go up in Smoke

**Right...so it's been a long, long time since I've updated this. I'm so sorry, but school was a must. I was so busy this semister with a huge project that was worth about a third of my grade in one of the classes. But, school is almost over! One week to go!**

**Thanks to:**

**x XRoweenaJAgustineX x - Thanks, I'm glad you liked the chapter**

**Optimiste - Ooh, I know right**

**I'mAnIdiotButWhoCares - Well, i'm still glad you like it =)**

**MusicBeeQueen - I'm sorry this chapter is so late**

**Cara Lupin - Yeah, I'm going to do all five books, so you know i'll finish this story eventually lol**

**nina luvs paul - I will, i will!**

**mysterygirl123 - Thanks!**

**Oh My Sam and Kurt in a bed - lol awesome name. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!**

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

**Our Dinners go up in Smoke**

* * *

_**I can't tell you how embarrassed I was that I made a fool of Clarisse. I was sure that she was going to beat me up…but I guess I was afraid of people beating me up because my mother did it a lot. I was tired of it, but every little thing was the wrong thing. I'm not sure what was right and what wasn't right that I was afraid of a lot of things, but the look on Clarisse's face was pure murder. **_

_**But…I did have a feeling that something else was going to happen soon. Something big. Something very big.**_

* * *

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at both me and Rennie and murmured stuff about toilet water and demonic shadows. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

She showed us a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough. Rennie adamantly swore that she would never climb that wall. I believed her – her face was as white as paper when she saw the lava.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"It wasn't Percy's fault…" Ren quietly said. She stepped up so that she was beside me.

Annabeth looked at us skeptically, and I realize it _was _my fault. It was _our_ fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. Ren had made those shadows move. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me and the shadows responded to Ren. I had become one with the plumbing and Ren had become one with the shadows. At least Ren got something cool to control.

"The two of you need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give us a straight answer for once. I felt Ren's hand on my shoulder and I felt my mouth twitch a little. She could always make me smile.

When I looked down at the lake, I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if Ren and I were long lost friends.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back, but Ren was too shy to wave. I knew she couldn't help it so I didn't worry about it.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

"I don't." Ren whispered, "I don't ever want to go back."

Annabeth frowned at Ren's comment, but when she spoke she was addressing me. "Don't you get it, Percy? You _are_ home. This is the only safe place on Earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?" I think my cluelessness cheered Ren up because my silver eyed best friend giggled at my comment.

"I mean _not human_. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?" Ren dared to whisper. She still wasn't a fan of speaking loudly.

"I think you two know, Eirene."

"Ren, please." Ren automatically replied in a soft voice.

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

"God," I said. "Half-god."

Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. Neither is yours, Ren. They're one of the Olympians."

"That's…crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common things gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"But those are just…" I almost said _myths_ again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids are here are half-gods…"

"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.

"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American History."

"He's human?" Ren quietly answered, confused.

"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive?" Ren's face blushed bright red and I found myself glaring at Annabeth.

"Who's your mom, then?" I questioned in a hard voice.

"Cabin six."

"Meaning?"

Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle.

Okay, I thought. Why not?

"And my dad? Ren's?"

"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad would have. He loved her."

Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sigh. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sigh claiming you as his son. The same goes for Ren. Her father has to send a sign claiming her as his daughter. Sometimes it happens."

"You mean sometimes it doesn't?" came Ren's quiet and sad voice. I knew how much she wanted to meet her father.

Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always…Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Ren. They ignore us."

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them! But gods should behave better.

"So we're stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of our lives?"

"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble – about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"So monsters can't get in here?" Ren questioned curiously. You know, this is the most I've ever heard Ren talk to a stranger.

Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes?"

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"So…you're a year-rounder?" I questioned hesitantly.

Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.

"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."

"Why did you come so young?" Ren quietly asked.

Annabeth twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."

"Oh." We stood there for for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So…I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?" I regretted asking the moment that I did. Ren's silver eyes flashed with hurt and she removed the hand that had been on my shoulder. I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

"I'll see you guys later." She almost whispered before running off before we had a chance to say anything.

* * *

_**Yeah, I will admit that Percy's question hurt me a lot. I wanted to stay there with others who were like me, but if Percy left I would go with him. I would be miserable for the rest of my life, but I didn't want him to go alone. That was why I was hurt. He wanted to leave and he thought I wanted to stay. He didn't even ask me what I wanted – he just wanted to leave.**_

_**I went to go relax and think by myself near the woods. Not exactly in them since I didn't know what was there, but somewhere dark. I like the dark.**_

* * *

"Nice going, nimrod. Anyway, it would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer unless…"

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time…"

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.

"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff…."

"Ambrosia."

"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."

Annnabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"

"Well…no. Back at my old school, Ren and I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"

She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so _normal_."

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders – Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others – we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"But…how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"

"Oh, sure. Ren is, too. She lives in the same building as me." as far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.

"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard the satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you and Ren came, I was hoping…I mean – Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought that we – meaning you, Ren, and I – could work together. I thought one of you might know something."

I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions. Plus, I had this really strong urge to go find Rennie – I wasn't comfortable having her not near me when we're in a strange place.

"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem…"

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

I found Ren right outside cabin eleven, where everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. There was this strange looking tannish girl talking to her. She looked to be a year older than us and she had long brown hair with startling blue eyes.

"Percy…this is Nemesis. She's a daughter of Hephaestus and named after the goddess of revenge." The girl looked over to me and smirked before jogging away. Ren was blushing, but she had a smile on her face. That was good. I'm glad she was making friends, but a part of me was getting jealous. I had known her longer, after all.

* * *

_**Nemesis was nice. She found me sitting near the forest and introduced me to some of her brothers. Apparently she was the only daughter that Hephaestus had had or something like that. Her mom liked Greek mythology and named her 'Nemesis' because she thought it was cool…or something like that.**_

* * *

For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me, besides Ren, as I walked inside and over to my spot on the floor, plopping down with my minotaur horn. Soon after, Ren sat in her spot beside me.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was still intact.

"Found you two sleeping bags." He said. "And here, I stole you guys some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part, but Ren was staring at him with surprised eyes.

I said, "Thanks." And Ren nodded her thanks as well.

"No prob." Luke sat next to me on the other side, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"I don't belong here, but Ren does." I said, gaining a glare from Ren. "I don't even believe in gods. She's the one whose into the whole mythology thing."

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? it doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised us, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Hermes?"

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. Ren shuddered at the sight of the blade.

"Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Luke didn't mean to call us nobodies. He just had a lot on his mind.

* * *

_**It was probably hard on Luke. I mean with so many people in the cabin and he didn't even know if they were his brothers and sisters. I felt bad for him.**_

* * *

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell us, he'd tell us. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other.

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him – even if he was a counselor – should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. Ren wasn't uncool. The only reason she was picked on was because she was my friend. But Luke had welcomed us into the cabin. He'd even stolen us some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for us all day.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth…twice, she said I might be 'the one'. She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about? She said Ren needs to see the Oracle, too."

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?" Ren quietly asked, finally entering the conversation.

Luke's face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until…two special people came to the camp."

"Special people?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before. I grabbed Ren's hand and helped her stand.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so I was second to last. Rennie was so shy I let her stand on the end. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods – and when I say out of the woods, I mean _straight_ out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a ew dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off and Ren sat in my lap. It was sort of awkward, but not at the same time..

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to once side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares' table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, as was Ren's, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want – nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

"Wild Cherry Pepsi." Ren said from beside me – it was her favorite drink. We always shared playful banter between us. I loved Coke and she loved Pepsi.

Then I had an idea. "_Blue_ Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday…

"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me and Ren a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate while Ren only took a few pieces. I was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Luke told us.

As we got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help but wonder why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next. Ren was behind me.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. _Whoever you are, tell me. Please._

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

"Father." I heard Ren whisper as she bowed her head, throwing the biggest piece of meat into the fire. The fire flashed purple for the barest hint of a second, but I ignored it. It could have meant anything.

When everybody had returned to their seats and fnished eathing their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I better say hello to you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you we have two new campers today. Peter Johnson and Eira Pennyfield."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Percy Jackson and Eirene Grayfield," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. Ren was smiling and coming out of her shell, too. I felt that we were home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag. Ren curled up next to me inside her sleeping bag and we drifted to sleep very easily.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

This was our first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly we would get to enjoy our new home.

* * *

_**Percy was right. I felt at home when we were singing songs. I no longer felt like I had to hide within myself, but I feared what would come in the next day. Would we have to meet the Oracle? I hated fighting. Would I have to participate in Capture the Flag? Only time could tell.**_


	9. We Capture a Flag

**Yay, so everyone knows who Ren and Percy's parents are. XD**

**Thanks to:**

**fuzzyelffreak - Thanks. Enjoy the chapter!**

**MCRDanime - Glad you like it! Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

**We Capture a Flag**

* * *

_**It was slightly uncomfortable inside the Hermes Cabin. I had to watch my back in there because I was a new girl. Percy did his best to look out for me, but even he couldn't be there all the time. There were some perverted people, but most of them liked to play tricks on people. Most of the time it was on the newbies. Luke was nice to us, which was a relief. I was glad that he decided to look out for us – I didn't know if I could handle it if we were hated here as well as in the outside world.**_

_**The time for Capture the Flag was growing closer. What was I to do when I was a pacifist, just like the goddess I was named after?**_

* * *

The next few days Ren and I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that we were getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur. There wasa rumor that Ren could have been a daughter of Apollo since she had a knack for healing, but she didn't look like any of Apollo's kids. They were all blond, for starters.

Each morning we took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about our dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. Ren was better than me, but that was because she liked to read a lot. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much of a headache.

The rest of the day, we'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something we were good at. Chiron tried to teach us archery. Ren was actually pretty good and that was something else that led us to believe that she was a daughter of Apollo. Me? We found out pretty quick that I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. Chiron didn't complain, even when he had to desnag a stray arrow out of his tail.

Foot racing? Forget that. Both Ren and I were left sitting in the dust by the wood-nymph instructors. They told us not to worry about it. They'd have centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.

And wrestling? Forget it. Ren refused to participate at all. Ever time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.

"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.

The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching us, trying to decide who our dads were, but they weren't having an easy time of it. We weren't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids – though Ren was close to it. We didn't have Hephaestus' skill with metalwork or – gods forbid – Dionysus' way with vine plants. Luke told us that we might be children of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, but that kind of made me sick. I was attracted to my half-sister? I didn't want to think about that. I got the feeling that he was just trying to make me feel better. He didn't want to know what to make of us, either.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I had a feeling that Rennie did, too. She wasn't very athletic, but she was amazing at arts and crafts. She was good a basket weaving and things like that. We got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with Ren – and cabin eleven – and scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always ha, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back…

I started to understand Luke's bitterness and he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods have important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?

Ren was getting desperate as well. She wasn't eating as much as she used to, which was little at all. She barely spoke anymore – I knew how bad she wanted to meet her father.

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Ren was excused as she wanted to become a healer instead. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.

"Good Luck," one of the campers told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"Maybe he'll go easy on me," I said.

The camper snorted.

Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Percy," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" _Whap! _"Lunge!" _Whap! _"Now, back!" _Whap!_

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler that Ren was standing by. Luke poured ice water on his head before giving Ren a wink. I glared at him, but did the same thing. I poured ice water on my head.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward.

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

Great, I thought. Let's all watch Percy get pounded.

The Hermes guys gathered around and Ren came closer. I was embarrassed to fight in front of her. What if I failed? They were suppressing smiles while Ren just held a worried look. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique." He said.

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

"Good luck, Percy." I heard Ren whisper to me. I smiled slightly.

"Now in real time." Luke said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparing until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"

I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.

The sword grew heavy in my hand. the balance wasn't right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, what the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

* * *

_**When Percy used that techniqu**__**e, all I could do was stand there and gasp in shock. Then, I remembered what happened before he started to fight. He had downed himself in water. WATER. What if water was the key to his heritage?**_

_**But there were so many deities and gods that had to do with water…how could we ever find who our parents are?**_

* * *

My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.

_Clang._

Luke's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.

The other campers were silent.

I lowered my sword. "Um…sorry."

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" his scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword…"

Friday afternoon, Ren and I were sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten to me and Ren. She had to go have her arm wrapped and my shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow. Ren leaned over, patting Grover's back in concern and I felt a white hot flash of jealousy run through me.

"Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career's still on track?" I questioned, ignoring the jealousy. Where had that come from?

He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Well…no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask. "He just said you had big plans, you know…and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?" Ren was listening curiously.

Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you two yet, so our fates are still tied together. If one of you get a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of either of you getting a quest…and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course we'd want you along!" Ren and I said at the same time.

Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving…Must be nice to have a useful skill."

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. Ren rubbed his back and we talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject.

"No. one of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. she's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."

"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades." Ren supplied.

"Right. You know. after the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

"Zeus got the sky," Ren supplied again, "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."

"Uh-huh.:

"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here." I interjected.

"No. he doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing in the underworld. If he did have a cabin here…" Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it a that."

"But Zeus and Poseidon – they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."

Grover nodded.

"Did the brothers keep to their word?" Ren quietly asked.

Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo – he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia…well the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter.

"But that isn't fair! It wasn't the little girl's fault!" Ren protested, a fiery gleam in her eyes.

Grover hesitated. "Ren…the children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a hoard of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

I stared at the pine in the distance. I could tell that Ren felt bad – she always hated hearing sad stories. The story made me fell hollow, and guilty too. A girl our age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much. I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

"Grover," I said, "have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."

"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close…Percy, you're not seriously thinking…"

"No," I lied. "I was just wondering. So…a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found us. Chiron said you thing we might be something special."

Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. Ren was looking at him with wide eyes. Could she be a daughter of Hades?

"I didn't…Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you _were_…you know…you'd never _ever_ be allowed on a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the goddess of revenge…you could have been adopted by your human mother, Ren…" he said trying to make Ren feel better about her human mother.

I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than us.

That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

When the plates wre cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.

I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"

"Yeah."

"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"

"Not always," he said. "But often."

"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do…repaint the flag?"

He grinned. "You'll see. Firs we have to get one."

"Whose side are we on?"

He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. Ren cowered behind me, not looking forward to the game at all. The scar on Luke's face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And _you two_ are going to help."

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded – shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities – in order to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I'd seen, Dionysus' kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff, but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Hephaestus' kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares' cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble while Ren started to look a bit ill.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, sears, oxhide shields coated in metal.

"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"

Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here – Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol with Ren. He thought it would be good for you two to stick together." He said, giving Ren smaller equipment than mine.

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.

Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. Ren was trembling by this time. the red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off towards the north.

I managed to catch up with Annabeth, Ren right behind me, without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."

She kept marching.

"So what's the plan? I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"

"We're on border patrol, whatever that means."

"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."

She pushed ahead, leaving us in the dust.

"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted us on your team."

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Annabeth stationed Ren and me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.

Standing there, alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.

There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?

Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory. Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual. At least Ren didn't need to fight anybody. I could already see her relaxing in the shadows. They swarmed around her as she lifted her lips into a small smile. She was in her zone.

Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.

Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark. They must have startled Ren because her shadows lashed out, taking out four of them. More warriors came, more than Ren could take out.

"Cream the punk and punkette!" Clarisse screamed.

Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard issue bronze swords – not that that made me feel any better.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin. I could hear Ren shrieking behind me. I had to get to her. I had to protect her.

I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Minotaur. They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back.

Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.

"Leave Percy alone!" I heard Ren shout and a tendril of shadow snaked around two of the Ares kids. They struggled, but it was no use as Ren threw them across the clearing.

The others could have kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said, ignoring Ren as she narrowed her eyes. "Grab his hair."

I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both of my arms felt numb.

"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this guy. Really scared."

"The flag is that way," I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come out that way. I could see Ren getting tired – she hadn't manipulated the shadows since the time in the bathroom.

"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid."

"You do that without my help," I told them. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.

Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-ke-babbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.

Seeing my own blood made my dizzy – warm and cold at the same time.

"No maiming," I managed to say.

"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege."

He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed and turned towards Ren. I figured as soon as they were done being amused with us, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans. Red scrambled back away from them, behind me as I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.

Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.

"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced by a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the onch horn.

The game was over. We'd won.

I was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero. Even your little friend fought a bit."

I looked, but she wasn't there.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. "You set Ren and me up," I said. "You put us here because you knew Clarisse would come after us, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."

Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."

"A plan to get us pulverized."

"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but…" she shrugged. "You didn't need help."

Then she noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"

"Sword cut," I said. "What do you think?"

"No. It _was_ a sword cut. Look at it."

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.

"I-I don't get it," I said.

Annabeth was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Percy."

"What…" by that time Ren had pushed her way through the crowd.

"Just do it." Annabeth said.

I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms stated to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.

"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is _not_ good. I didn't want…I assumed it would be Zeus…"

Before I could ask what she meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: "_Stand ready! My bow!"_

Annabeth drew her sword and Ren's shadows started to dance once again.

There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

It was looking straight at me and Ren.

Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Percy, Ren, run!"

She tried to step in front of us, but the hound as too fast. Ren was faster than the hound, though, and managed to push me out of the way with her shadows…making her take the brunt of the blow. Yes, I got a few scratches here and there from the rocks, but razor sharp claws ripped through her armor and I could hear her terrified scream rip through the area. All too suddenly, the attack was over…and a man dressed in dark robes was crouched over Ren's fallen form.

"I would _think_ you would know not to attack my _daughter_, fiend." The man hissed in a dark and dangerous tone. He was tall, but not overly so, and he had black and purple hair tied back in a braid – it was so long it reached the back of his knees. He wore black armor over his robes, but wielded no weapon. His eyes were the darkest of hues and, after a double take, I noticed that they were literally pitch black. There was no color in his eye at all. The whole eyeball was black as shadows.

Everybody gasped as the man kneeled by Ren waved his hand and the monster backed away with its tail between its legs before turning to flee. I felt stupid, like I was supposed to know who he was, but I didn't. So, I asked Annabeth.

"I don't know, Percy. I've never seen or heard of him before." She said in a quiet voice. Chiron walked slowly up to the man and kneeled in front of him.

"Greetings Erebus." He said in a respectful tone.

"_Di immortals!_" Annabeth said in awe, "He's a primordial god! He's even older than the Big Three! He's the god of darkness and shadows…the lowest pit in Tatarus is named after him!"

"Is he bad?" I questioned, a worried feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"No, not bad…just…Ren is the first child he's ever had with a human."

And just as suddenly, the god of darkness and shadows looked up at me.

"You, Jackson boy. Step into the water." I had no choice but to do as he said. He was a god, after all. I stepped into the creek, the whole camp gathering around us.

Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped. By the time I looked to see what they were staring at, the spinning form of a trident was already disappearing.

"It is determined." Chiron announced.

All around us, campers started kneeling.

"My father?" I questioned, completely bewildered.

"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Persues Jackson, Son of the Sea God. Hail Eirene Greyfield, Daughter of the Lord of Shadows and Darkness."

So, I was the son of Poseidon…and Ren was the daughter of Erebus.


	10. We are Offered a Quest

**Here's chapter nine! **

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* * *

**Chapter Nine**

**We are Offered a Quest**

* * *

_**My…father. I had finally met my father. He was better than I even imagined him to be. I had expected him to be one of the lesser gods, perhaps someone like Eros – it would be just my luck and it would make sense because of how my mother would act. My father…he was a higher god. He was older than even those of Olympus. He was a primordial god, one of the first ever to walk the stony soil of Earth. **_

_**Erebus, god of darkness and shadows. **_

_**I thought him to be cold and calculating, like all of the myths and rumors described him, but he wasn't. If anything he was cold and calculating to everyone else, but with me…he was warm and affectionate. I could practically feel the love he had for me.**_

_**I was happy. For the first time in a long time, I was truly happy. I had a place I belonged, I had Percy and Grover…and I had my father. I was happy.**_

* * *

The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.

I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all of my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

And I was absolutely miserable.

All those times I stood up for Rennie…I couldn't do that anymore. She had a room in the house. It was because her father didn't have a cabin. He said that it wasn't any fault of ours – he wasn't an Olympian god and, therefore, didn't have a cabin. He was a primordial god…he was different. He was powerful and I was scared shitless of him. He was nice enough to me, but I felt like he didn't quite trust anyone else besides Grover. Maybe it was because we were her only friends? We were the only ones who were her friends back at Yancy.

Erebus was also overprotective, but maybe that came because he couldn't directly interfere in her life before? I wish my father would at least meet me.

I missed Ren. For the past couple of days she had spent the night by my side, but now…we were so far apart. But, she was happy and I didn't want to rain on her parade just because I was uncomfortable being in a cabin by myself.

* * *

_**No, I couldn't lie to myself. I was a little lonely. I was moved from the Hermes Cabin to the house. I had my own room, but I missed sleeping next to Percy every night. I had a feeling that father knew about it, but he didn't say anything about it.**_

_**Plus, he promised to show me a few moves I could do with the shadows and I didn't want him to back out of his promise because I made him angry.**_

* * *

Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid – or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood – I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease. Things weren't going any better for Ren, but their separation from her was of awe instead of disgust. Nobody was related to a primordial god. This was the first half-blood child Erebus had sired as well.

Nobody mentioned the hellhound to us, but I got the feeling they were all taking about it behind our backs. The attack had scared everybody. It sent three messages: one, I was the son of the Sea God; two, Rennie was the daughter of a powerful primordial god; three, monsters would stop at nothing to kill us. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers steered clear of us as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lesions with Luke became one-on-one. The Apollo kids were nervous around Ren when they found out who her father was. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.

"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. Ren and her father were on the other side of the arena, working on something with shadows. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."

Annabeth still taught us Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time we said something, she scowled at us, as if either one of us had just poked her between the eyes.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest…Poseidon?...Erebus…Dirty rotten…Got to make a plan…"

Even Clarisse kept her distance, thought her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the _New York Daily News_, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.

**BOY, MOTHER, AND FRIEND STILL MISSING**

**AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT**

**By Eileen Smythe**

Sally Jackson and son Percy, along with Percy's friend, Eirene Greyfield, are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother and son, along with son's friend, had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons or Miss Greyfield. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past. Ironically, his friend, Miss Greyfield, had been arguing with her mother for the past couple of years. She attended the same school as Mr. Jackson.

Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother and friend's disappearances , but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson, Percy, and Eirene. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.

The phone number was circled in black marker.

I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.

"Lights out," I told myself miserably.

That night, I had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance. Ren stood with her back to me, shrouded in shadows. I could see blood dripping from her shoulder and down her arm – I was horrified.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with bears and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I had to stop them – I had to help Rennie, too. I didn't know why. Ren started to run towards them and I tried to follow, but the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, _Give it back! Give it back!_ Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt, and threatening to wash Ren away. She had stopped running, but she was still in danger. She didn't know how to swim.

I yelled, _Stop it! Stop fighting!_

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

_Come down, little hero, _the voice crooned. _Come down!_

The sand spit beneath Ren and I, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed us.

I woke up, sure I was falling.

I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.

I head a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.

"Come in?"

Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you and Ren."

"Why?"

"He wants to kill…I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

Nervously I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.

For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.

"No," he said, "It never rains here unless we want it to."

I pointed to the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"

He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."

I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.

But this storm…this one was huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning gabe against the satyrs. Dionysus' twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.

Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day with Ren. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel-chair. They were playing against Ren and her father, Erebus. I was surprised that he was still here.

"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our other little celebrity."

I waited.

"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.

Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowred by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.

"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at the cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."

"You forget that he is a friend of my daughter, Dionysus." Erebus said coldly with a bone chilling glare, "It would do you no good to cause him harm."

"Spontaneous combustion _is_ a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in, agreeing with Erebus.

"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."

"Mr. D…" Chiron warned. Erebus had put his cards down and shadows had started to form in the background. Tendrils of the darkness had started to creep upward, becoming tangible as they swirled up the legs of the table and Dionysus' chair.

"I'm warning you, Dionysus. Do not anger me." he said, eyes flickering as if they were shadows themselves.

"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option, but this one involves your daughter. It's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."

Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.

He snapped his fingers.

The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.

Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained.

"Sit, Percy, please."

I did.

Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.

"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"

Just hearing the name made me shudder, but then I felt a surprisingly warm hand on my shoulder.

"Do not fear, boy. We will not think so little of one who speaks the truth." Erebus said, looking at me with kind eyes. I took his advice.

"It scared me," I said, "If you hadn't attacked it, Ren would be dead. If she hadn't pushed me out of the way, _I'd _be dead."

"You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done."

"Done…with what?"

"Your quest with Ren, of course. Will you accept it?"

I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.

"Um, sir," I said, "You haven't told us what it is yet."

Chiron grimanced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."

Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

"Poseidon and Zeus." Erebus said in a grave voice. He wrapped his arm around his daughter's shoulders and hugged her to him in a protective manner.

"They're fighting over something valuable…something that was stolen, aren't they?"

Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.

Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft. And…I've also been having these dreams." Ren's head perked up at the sound of dreams.

"I've been having weird dreams, too." She softly said. Erebus tightened his hold on her.

"I knew it," Grover said.

"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.

"But it is their quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."

I laughed nervously as Ren gasped, eyes wide. "A what?"

"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."

"Oh."

"Zeus' master bolt." Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to ake mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."

"This is enough power to make even Nyx and I worried." He said, referring to his godly consort. She was the primordial goddess of the night, if I was correct.

"And it's missing?" Ren asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Stolen," Chiron said.

"By who?" she asked again.

"By _whom_" Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By Percy."

My mouth fell open.

"At least…" Chiron held up a hand, "…that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are far more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly – that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

"But I didn't…"

"Patience, boy. Listen to what Chiron has to say." Erebus told me, tightening his hold on my shoulder. I had forgotten that it was there. Chiron nodded in thanks and continued.

"Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could have easily snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."

"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"

Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in a coffin lid.

"Er, Percy…?" Grover said, "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."

"Bah! The old coot is definitely crazy. Take my word for it." Erebus scowled, "He has no respect for us primordial gods. He thinks he can walk right over us."

"Perhaps _paranoid,_" Chiron suggested. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam…" he looked at us as if he automatically expected us to remember question thirty-eight.

* * *

_**This was crazy. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could anyone accuse Percy of stealing anything? He was the sweetest boy I knew! Sure, he was a little odd, but wasn't everyone?**_

_**My father was such a sweetheart! He stood up for me, glaring at everyone who glared at me. He taught me how to defend myself with shadows – that thing I did to Clarisse in the bathroom was actually his influence. It was like he was whispering in my ear at the time and now he taught me how to actually manipulate the shadows. I call the technique 'Shadow Possession.' **_

_**He said that he would later teach me how to heal using shadows. It was a unique concept. He also said that we could travel via the shadows – it was different than the shadow travelling that Hades did. He goes to a different plane, the plane of the dead, while we actually transform into shadows. It's so interesting! **_

_**I am so happy that my father is in my life now…but I want to meet Nyx. I'm curious about what she thinks of me.**_

* * *

How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker party without getting busted. Chiron was waiting for an answer.

"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods…they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"

"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along – the proverbial last straw."

"But he's just a kid – we both are!" Ren cried, obviously unnerved by the information. Erebus took his arm from his daughter's shoulders and instead started to rub her back.

"Percy, Eirene," Grover cut in, "If either of you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you…Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

"But he didn't do anything." Ren said.

"Poseidon – my dad – he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"

Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus had demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus' temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like you two?"

"Bad?" I guess while Ren just whimpered. She was probably thinking of the violence. Erebus removed his hand from my shoulder and pulled his daughter into his lap, wrapping his arms around her smaller frame.

"Imagine the world in chaos, boy. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so bit it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight." The dark Lord said as he tightened his arms around his daughter's form and resting his chin on her head.

"Bad." I repeated.

"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus' wrath."

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

_I_ had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.

"So I have to find the stupid bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus."

"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus' property?"

"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?"

"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago…well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."

"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"

"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge." Ren's eyes widened.

"Good reason."

"You agree then?"

I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.

Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted to kill.

"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

Ren sent me an encouraging smile, but for some reason her smile made me feel much more confident than Grover's smile.

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor.

I pulled the chord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else…a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.

I held my breath and climbed.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled _things_ – severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, n.y., 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her faces was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap-door, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: _I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask._

I wanted to say, _No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom_. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.

The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand; ancient, powerful, and definitely _not_ human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.

I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.

My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.

Gabe turned towards me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: _With the daughter of shadows you shall go west, and face the god who has turned._

His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: _you shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned._

The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: _you shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend._

Finally, Eddie, our building super, deliver the worst line of all: _and you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end._

The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"

The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.

I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cobwebs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.

My audience with the Oracle was over.

* * *

_**I had been so nervous when Percy went up to talk with the Oracle. Chiron had explained to me what he had to do and when I found out there was a possibility that he could go insane…well…that didn't sit well with me. Father had to hold me in his lap or else I would have gone after him.**_

* * *

"Well?" Chiron asked me.

I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen with the daughter of shadows."

Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great! The daughter of shadows obviously means Ren."

"What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed, "This is important."

My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She…she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."

"I knew it," Grover said.

Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

I didn't want to tell them.

What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.

And the last line – I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, _Oh, by the way, you'll fail. _

How could I confess that?

"No," I said. "That's about it."

He studied my face and I had a feeling that Erebus was as well. "Very well, Percy. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.

"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"

"Ah, think, Percy," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"

"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken.

I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground, but Ren answered the question for me.

"Hades." She said, looking a Chiron with a little intimidation in her gaze.

Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."

A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"

"A Fury came after both Percy and Eirene," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young man and young woman until she was sure of their identities, then tried to kill them. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."

"Yes, but – but Hades hates all heroes," Grover protested, "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon. Even more if he found out about Ren! He's jealous of Erebus' power."

Erebus smirked, but tightened his hold on his daughter. "As he should be. He did, after all, name the lowest level of Tatarus after me."

"A hellound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be someone by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."

"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."

"Not if I have anything to say about that, boy." Erebus shook his head, "Any friend of my daughter is a friend of mine. You have the support of the shadows, but only in great emergency. We cannot interfere directly in a quest, after all."

"But a quest to…" Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."

"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy and Eirene must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."

A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. I was angry – he not only endangered me, but he had endangered my best friend as well. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.

I was ready to take him on.

Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld….

Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god.

Grover was trembling. He's started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.

The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me and Rennie so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? I was scared about Ren coming! This was suicide.

"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."

"Suspecting and knowing is not the same, boy." Erebus said offhandedly. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades –and Poseidon probably does – they couldn't remove the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"

"You're saying I'm being used."

"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you." The shadow god said.

My dad needs me.

Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me.

I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"

"I had my suspicions. As I said…I've spoken to the Oracle, too."

I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling us about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed to go to the Underworld with Ren and confront the Lord of the Dead."

"Check," Chiron said.

"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."

"Check,"

"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."

"That's about right."

I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.

"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you."

"Oh…" He shifted his hooves. "No…it's just that satyrs and underground places…well…"

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy. If…if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you guys down."

I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. Ren…she was very special to me. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with us.

"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where?"

Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."

"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane…"

"No!" both Grover and Ren exclaimed. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you or Ren been on a plane in your entire lives?" Grover asked.

I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.

"Percy, think," Chiron said. "You are the son of the Sea god. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you on an airplane. You would be in Zeus' domain. You would never come down again alive."

"I'm just afraid of heights…" Ren quietly admitted, making her father chuckle.

Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.

"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, we'll travel overland."

"That's right," Chiron said. "Normally two companions may accompany you, but the Oracle specially stated that the daughter of shadows, which is Ren, will accompany you as well. One is Grover. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."

"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

The air shimmered behind Chiron.

Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain," she said. Erebus shot her a cold and calculating look. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

"I take offense to that." Ren coldly stated. "He doesn't need you to keep him from messing up. Percy is a smart person."

Her cheeks colored. "Do you want my help or not?"

The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.

"Perhaps…I could use your help."

"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as he bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own.

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."

* * *

_**I was scared shitless. I really didn't want to go to the Underworld, but there was no way in hell – pardon my semi-pun – that I was leaving him to go there alone. If I could help it, Percy Jackson would come back from this quest alive and without a scratch on him.**_


	11. I Ruin a Bus

**Here's the next chapter!**

**Thanks to:**

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* * *

**Chapter Ten**

**I Ruin a Perfectly Good Bus**

* * *

_**I was so very scared to be going on this quest, but I had Percy with me. I had Grover with me. I had the teachings of my father in my head…but Annabeth was coming. She acted like someone much higher than we were simply because she had been here the longest. Just because we were new. I didn't like her attitude. It wasn't befitting of someone like the daughter of Athena. Athena was wise – she knew when to speak and when not to speak from what my father said. Her daughter was nothing like her. **_

_**I had a feeling she didn't like me, either.**_

* * *

It didn't take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Minotaur horn in my cabin, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me. I suppose Ren was doing the same, but at least she had her dad to help her.

The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used anything less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for nonmortal transactions – whatever that meant. He gave Annabeth , Ren, and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.

Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom. She carried a book on famous classical architecture written in Ancient Greek, to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector.

Rennie was wearing some new leathery armor that was a gift from her father. She also had a stick like thing that was on her back, but when she pulled it off and hit a switch, a crescent blade sprang forward. It was actually a scythe as tall as she was. The blade was wicked sharp and the other end was weighted just the slightest bit to offset the weight of the blade. She replaced it on her back, telling me that she would rather help with healing, but her dad said she could use it in emergencies.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of hs horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. twelve and Hillary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer dude I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face, and neck.

"This is Argus," Chiron told us. "He will drive you to the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."

I heard footsteps behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of baseball shoes.

"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."

Annabeth blushed, the way she always did when Luke was around. Ren, however, inched away. It was like she didn't like him or something.

"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought…um, maybe you could use these."

He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.

Luke said, _"Maia!_"

White bird wings sprouted from the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. the shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

"Awesome!" Grover said.

Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days…" His expression turned sad.

I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was giving me a magic gift…it made me blush almost as much as Annabeth.

"Hey, man," I said, "Thanks."

"Listen, Percy…" Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just…kill some monsters for me, okay?"

We shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out. Ren only stuck her hand out when he went to hug her. I let a small smirk form on my face as Erebus appeared behind Luke.

"Watch your hands, boy." He said coldly and Luke jumped.

After Luke was gone, I told Annabeth, "You're hyperventilating."

"Am not."

"You let him capture the flag instead of you, didn't you?"

"Oh…why do I want to go anywhere with you, Percy?" Ren glared at her, not liking the tone she used, but I was used to it already.

She stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.

I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

He shook his head. "Luke meant well, Percy. But taking to the air…that would not be wise for you."

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"

His eyes lit up. "Me?"

Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.

"_Maia!" _he shouted.

He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"

"Aah!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. Ren slowed down to wait for me and for that I was grateful. "I should have trained you better, Percy, Ren." He told the both of us. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason – they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just wish…"

I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes, Annabeth's invisible cap, or Ren's scythe.

"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."

He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.

"Gee," I said. "Thanks."

"Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."

I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be…?

I took off the cap, and the pin grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.

"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "Its name is Anaklusmos."

"Riptide," I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.

"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals? How could it not?"

"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are twice as vulnerable."

"Good to know."

"Now recap the pen."

I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in my pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school. Ren could vouch for me with that. She had lent me a lot of pens during our year at school together.

"You can't." Chiron said.

"Can't what?"

"Lose the pen," he said. "It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."

I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.

"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me. "Now check your pocket."

Sure nough, the pen was there.

"Okay, that's _extremely _cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"

Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Percy."

"Mist?" this time Ren spoke up in her quiet voice. I jumped, almost forgetting she was there. She had been unnaturally quiet through our entire conversation. She was normally quiet, but not _that_ quiet.

* * *

_**Yes. Yes, I was quiet. I was absolutely terrified to be going on this quest without much training. I was grateful for my father's gifts – the butter soft leather armor and the amazing scythe – but, remember, I am a passive person and not an offensive person. I'd rather be a healer than anything else.**_

* * *

"Yes. Read _The Illiad. _It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

I put Riptide back in my pocket.

For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill and Rennie was coming with me. I was heading west with her – with no adult supervision – and no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron…" I said. "When you say the gods are immortal…I mean, there was a time _before_ them, right?"

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like…before the gods?"

Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So…even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up _everything_, right?"

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. _They _still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny…assuming we know what that is."

"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history. Rely on your friends." He sent a meaningful glance towards Ren.

"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed."

When I got to the bottom of the hill, Ren's arm intertwined with mine, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Ciron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his brow high in salute. Just your typical summer camp send-off by your typical centaur.

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough room for more than three in the back so Ren was forced to sit on my lap. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.

"So far so good," I told Ren. "Ten miles and not a single monster." I felt her nod her head, but Annabeth gave me an irritated look.

"It's bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain."

"Remind me again – why do you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you."

"Could've fooled me."

She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look…we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."

"So? My father is a Primordial god. If we went on who our parents are, I wouldn't be talking to Percy because his father is 'below' Primordial gods as they're older than the Olympians." Ren spat at Annabeth.

I, however, wanted to know why we couldn't get along. "Why?"

She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is _hugely_ disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad crated some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"They must really like olives."

"Oh, forget it."

"Now, if she'd invented pizza – _that _I could understand." I felt Ren start to giggle against me.

"I said, forget it!"

In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and started to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

Next to it was a missing person's poster of Ren, but it said she had been kidnapped by me. I ripped both down before Annabeth and Grover could notice, but Ren sent me a sympathetic look.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.

I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?"

I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or something?"

"Just your emotions." He shrugged. "Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgotten to tell me.

"Your mom married Gabe for _you_." Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura…Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."

"Thanks," I said, making Ren laugh out loud this time, "Where's the nearest shower?"

"You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. He smells so bad that even Ren was protected and she lived a few apartments down. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew; Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy – if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it. I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone. Ren came over with a sad face and wrapped her arms around my waist in a hug. I couldn't help but smile. She always knew how to make me feel better.

I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and Annabeth were with me, but I was even gladder that Ren was here. I felt guilty, however, that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus' lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble. The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done.

All I cared about was my mom and Ren. I still had Ren, but Hades had taken my mom unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back.

_You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, _the Oracle whispered in my mind. _You will fail to save what matters most in the end. _

_Shut up_, I told it.

* * *

_**I felt bad for Percy when Grover decided to explain to Percy why his mom married the one named Gabe. I had to admit that I was very surprised when I found out that Gabe had protected me for so long. I never knew that it was his stench that was protecting me.**_

_**It made me think that it was just my mom who was out to get me.**_

* * *

The rain kept coming down.

We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable. She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. I wasn't too bad myself, but Ren was pretty good too, albeit a bit shaky with her balance.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared – core, stem, and all.

Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Annabeth, Rennie and I were too busy cracking up.

Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy – enchiladas.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."

But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.

I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our backpacks. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh.

As the last passengers got on, Annabeth clamped her hand onto my knee. "Percy."

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart skipped a beat. Ren gasped and slung her arms around my arm, shivering in fear.

It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I scrunched down in my seat.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds – same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. it was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. I had to be strong for Ren because the last time we fought…she was injured. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're _lucky_," Annabeth said. "You're obviously not."

"All three of them," Grover whimpered. "_Di immortals!" _

"It's okay," Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"They don't open." Ren whimpered.

"A back exit." She suggested.

There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?" Ren asked in a quiet voice.

She thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof…?"

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights downthe aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

"I'll try to hold them." Ren whispered. She extended her power and Mrs. Dodds got up, but she couldn't move very well. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the restroom."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

"I can't hold them…" Ren whispered and they all started coming down the aisle.

"I've got it," Annabeth said. "Percy, take my hat."

"What?"

"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."

"But you guys…"

"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Annabeth said. "You're a son of the Big Three. You're smell might be overpowering. Ren's father is powerful, yes, but she is his only half-blood daughter so they won't mess with her right now."

"I can't just leave you." My comment was directed more towards Ren.

"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"

My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on.

When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore.

I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.

Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding.

Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going.

I was free. I made it to the front of the bus, but my heart was aching. I was leaving Ren behind. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same – I guess those couldn't get any uglier – but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

Then, I heard Ren scream. She screamed in pain.

The Furies surrounded them, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw something alright.

"He's not here!" Ren was screaming. "He's gone!"

The Furies raised their whips.

Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack back and prepared to throw it. Ren looked like she froze.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I shoul've been named ADHD poster child of the year.

The bus driver was so distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.

"Hey!" the driver yelled "Hey-whoa!"

We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.

We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. the bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans, but Ren still seemed to be too afraid to do anything.

I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn't leave my friends. I took off the invisible cap.

"Hey!"

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my F minus math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames dancing along the barbed leather.

Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

"Perseus Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."

"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.

She growled.

Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening. Ren followed them at a distance.

I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.

"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."

"Nice try," I told her.

"Percy, look out!" I heard Ren cry.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.

My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"

The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piñata.

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds' legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the isle. Ren had gotten out her staff – she couldn't release the blade in such a compact space, and shoved it into her throat. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"

"_Braccas meas vescimini!" _I yelled.

I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant "Eat my pants!"

Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

"Get out!" Annabeth yelled at me. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement.

I grabbed Ren's hand and we rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!" a Hawaiin-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword.

"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our…."

BOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.

"Run!" Rennie shouted. "She's probably calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

* * *

_**I have to admit that I froze when I was against the Furies. Then, one of them attacked me with her whip and all I could do was stand there. Now, I had a huge burn on my arm and I had nobody to blame but myself. **_

_**But, I was not going to give up. I had to fight for Percy if I was not going to fight for myself. **_

_**I couldn't give up. **_


	12. Garden Gnomes

**If you've read my other stories you know the drill. My computer had to be taken to the shop but I'll get it back tomorrow! yays!**

**Thanks to:**

**ILoveReadingAndWriting - I know. Percy and Ren are cute together.**

**luis1113 - I'm sorry. I tried updating last week, but then my computer started having problems and I had to send it to the shop. I'm glad that you liked the story and I'll try to update this one more quickly.**

**ZariaReadsHard1500 - Thanks for the review, you two!**

**Lilly rose - Thanks for the review!**

**daughterofapollosings - I'm thinking that by the fourth book they'll be bf and gf. (They'll be 14/15 so it's a good age.)**

**moonfan4eva - lol here's the update.**

**fuzzyelffreak - lol I tried to think of what my dad would have done.**

**Ryn of Magic - Hey! lol Here's the update.**

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

**We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium**

* * *

_**I was really apprehensive about continuing our quest, but I didn't want to go back to the camp empty handed. Percy was in a lot of trouble over something that wasn't his fault and I wasn't about to let him roam all over the country without me. I was actually the only one out of the four of us that had any sort of medical training. **_

_**I had a feeling that if I left, one of the others would get seriously hurt. So, I stayed…and endured Annabeth's continuous know-it-all attitude.**_

* * *

In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

So there we were, Annabeth and Grover and Rennie and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.

Grove was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. Ren was scared, too, but she was taking it better than my goat friend. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once." He would murmur to himself.

I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there…" Ren softly said as she looked back to the bus, "Our food and clothes. Everything we had - back there."

"Well, maybe if you had actually contributed to the fight…"

"I'm sorry…" she whispered, tears forming in her eyes.

"Hey, leave Ren alone." I growled, "I jumped into the fight. It was my fault."

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."

"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans…a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to me and Ren. "Look, I…" her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? that was really brave."

Ren glared at her and I could tell that my friend really didn't like Annabeth.

"We're a team, right?" I questioned.

She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died…aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

"Is that all you think about? The stupid quest? Percy's risking his life to save everyone, including you. If he dies, you die, too!" Ren snapped, eyes flashing dangerously. The thunderstorm finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her blond hair.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked her, rubbing Ren's shoulder to calm her down.

"No…only short field trips. My dad…"

"The history professor."

"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood _is_ my home." She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in her voice.

"You're pretty good with that knife," I said.

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."

I couldn't really see, but I thought she might've smiled…but Ren's smile still had hers beat by a long shot.

"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you…Something funny back on the bus…"

Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill _toot-toot-toot_, like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hillary Duff.

Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed intro a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head.

Add to the list of superpowers I did _not _have: infrared vision.

After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another miles or so, and after I finally got Rennie to laugh again, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.

We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.

It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.

To me, and probably Ren, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.

"What the heck does that say?" I asked. Ren shook her head with a troubled expression on her face.

"I don't know," Annabeth said.

She loved reading so much, I'd forgotten she was dyslexic, too.

Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.

I cross the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.

"Hey…" Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Ren softly said, "Maybe it's open…" she sighed as she tilted her head forward, eyes closed.

"Snack bar," I said wistfully.

"Snack bar," she agreed with a smile.

"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."

We ignored him.

The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

"_Bla-ha-ha!" _he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"

We stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded, "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"

"Come on, Grover." Ren quietly pleaded. "Please?"

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."

"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.

"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are…looking at me."

Then the doors creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman – at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"

"They're…um…" Annabeth started to say.

"We're orphans." Ren suddenly said in a sad voice.

"Orphans?" the woman said the word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"

"We got separated from our caravan," I said, thinking quickly and running on Ren's idea, "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"

"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."

We thanked her and went inside.

Annabeth muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"

"Always have a strategy, right?"

"Your head is full of kelp."

"Shut it." Ren said, voice full of venom, "Percy's trying, okay?"

I felt my body warm at the fact she was defending me.

The warehouse was filled with more statues – people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-sized. But mostly, I was thinking about food.

Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair – it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.

All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.

"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.

"Awesome," I said.

"Are you sure, Miss?" Ren questioned, eyes large. She seemed to be a little apprehensive.

"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."

Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."

"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said.

Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.

"Quite alright, Annabeth, Eirene." She said "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child. And you, my dear. Your hair is exquisite." She said to the two of them respectively. Only later did I wonder how she knew their names, even though we had never introduced ourselves.

Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.

I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.

I glanced over to Ren, embarrassed to see that she was eating much more calmly than I was.

Annabeth slurped her shake.

Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as I he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.

"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.

I listened, but didn't hear anything. Annabeth shook her head.

"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."

"I take vitamins. For my ears."

"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."

Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her headdress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.

"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.

"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said, "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."

"Do you get a lot of business on this road?" came Ren's quiet voice. I looked at her and slipped one of her hands into mine under the table. I could still tell she was feeling uncomfortable.

"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built…most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."

My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.

"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly, "You notice some of my creations do not turn out so well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."

"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help e in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.

Annabeth had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"

"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a…a boyfriend, you now, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."

I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?

"Percy?" Ren was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go I mean, the ringmaster will be waiting."

She sounded scared. I wasn't sure why. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything

"Such beautiful hair color." Aunty Em told Rennie, "I've only seen that color once in my entire life. I've longed to see it again." She reached out as if to stroke Ren's cheek, but Ren stood up abruptly, fear in her eyes. Annabeth stood as well.

"We really should go."

"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"

I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice I wanted to stay with her for a while.

"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"

"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily.

"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."

Annabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Percy…"

"Sure we can," I said. I was irritated with Annabeth for being so bossy, so rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. "It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?"

"Yes, Annabeth," the woman purred. "No harm."

"Percy…" Ren whispered.

"Come on, Ren. You know you want to." I said, using her nickname. Her face flushed and she stammered. I could tell Annabeth didn't like it, but she, and Ren, allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.

Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now" she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The two young girls in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."

"Not much light for a photo." I remarked.

"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"

"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.

Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot.

"Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"

Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand"

"Grover," Aunty Em chastised "look this way, dear."

She still had no camera in her hands.

"Perccy…" Ren said.

Some instinct warned me to listen to her, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.

"I will be just a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil…"

"Perc…something's wrong." Ren insisted.

"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"

"That _is_ Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.

"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover, Ren, and me off the bench

I was on the ground, looking at Aunty Em's sandaled feet.

I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Annabeth in another, but I was to dazed to move.

Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. Ren had suddenly appeared and threw herself on top of me right as I raised my eyes. I saw Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.

"Percy, go!" Ren whispered to me.

I almost looked higher instead, but Ren pinched my arm. "Don't!"

More rasping – the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from…from about where Aunty Em's head would be.

"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "_Maia!" _to kick-start his flying sneakers.

I couldn't move despite Ren's poking and prodding. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.

"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face. The girl will have to go, too." She told us soothingly. "Stay with me, Percy, Eirene. All you have to do is look up."

I fought the urge to obey even when Ren covered my eyes with her hands. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put n gardens – a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.

Aunty Em.

Aunty "M."

How could I have been so stupid?

Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?

But I couldn't think. Ren had since stood up and unsheathed her scythe's staff. She was protecting me.

Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my namesake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open Ren's face despite the hold she had on her staff. Ren had her eyes closed. She couldn't fight with her eyes closed.

"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, children," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look p. to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."

"Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"

"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated into a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the other girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer. Neither should Eirene, here."

"No," I mutered. I tried to make my legs move.

"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."

"My father is not an Olympian and he thinks the quests are good for us." Ren said in a flat tone. I could see her finger inching towards the small, almost invisible, button that flipped out the blade.

"Percy, Ren!" Behind us, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"

I turned and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating from ears and nose alone.

"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"

That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail either me or Ren. I grabbed her around the waist and de to one side

_Thwack_!

At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage

"You miserable Satyr," she snarled "I'll add you to my collection!"

"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back

I scrambled away with Ren and we hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.

_Ker-whack!_

"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spitting.

Right next to us, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy!"

I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome.

"Jeez! Don't do that!"

Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. "You have to cut her head off!"

"What Are you crazy? Let's get out of here"

"Medusa is a menace. She's evil I'd kill her myself, but…you two have the better weapons." She said, as if she were making a difficult admission, "Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You – you two've got a chance."

"What? I cant…"

"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"

She pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.

Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of…"

"Will you speak English?"

"I am!" she tossed me the glass ball. "Just look at her in the glass. Never look at her directly"

"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"

Then she roared.

"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

"Hurry," Annabeth told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but eventually he'll crash."

I took out my pen and uncapped t. the bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.

"Please be careful, Percy." Ren begged me before throwing her arms around me in a hug. I nodded and then followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.

I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.

Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"

Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Hey!"

I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.

But she let me approach – twenty feet, ten feet.

I could see the reflection of he face now. Surely it wasn't really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.

"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."

I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass – the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.

From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"

Medusa cackled. "Too late."

She lunged at me with her talons.

I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening noise, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern – the sound of a monster disintegrating.

Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I cold feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little ding snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.

"Oh, yuck," Grover said his eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."

Annabeth and Ren came up next to me, their eyes fixed on the sky. Ren then turned to me, smiling brightly before enveloping me into another hug. Annabeth was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."

Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.

"Are you okay?" Ren asked me, her voice trembling.

"Yeah," I decided, though I felt like throwing up my double cheeseburger. "Why didn't…why didn't the head evaporate?" I asked Annabeth.

"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," she said. "Same as our minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."

Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.

"The Red Baron" I said, "Good job, man."

He managed a bashful grin. "That was really not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."

He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the four of us stumbled back to the warehouse.

We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped t on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.

Finally, I said. "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"

Annabeth flashed me an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still seet on our dad. You probably reminded her of him. She also has a thing for Erebus, too, but he's with Nyx." Ren's face was shocked before it turned into one of disgust.

My face was burning. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."

Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said: "It's just a photo, what's the harm?"

"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."

"You're insufferable."

"You're…"

"Stop it!" Ren hissed, "You two are giving me a headache. What are we gong to do with the head?"

I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

I was angry, not just with Annabeth or her mom, but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blow off the road and in two major fights in the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.

What had Medusa said?

_Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear You would be better off as a statue._

I got up. "I'll be back"

"Percy…" Ren said quietly.

I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.

In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right size box.

I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip.

_The Gods_

_Mount Olympus_

_600__th__ Floor,_

_Empire State Building_

_New York, NY_

_With best wishes,_

_Percy Jackson_

"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."

I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop.

"I am impertinent." I said.

I looked at Annabeth, daring her to criticize.

She didn't. She seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," she muttered. "We need a new plan."

* * *

_**I can't tell you how scared I was when we figured out that the old woman, Aunty Em, was Medusa. It was the whole fight or flight deal. My heart was pounding in my chest and I forgot about my power over the shadows. I ran and covered Percy with my own body since he seemed to be in a shocked daze.**_

_**When he still couldn't move, I reacted and did the next best thing. I got out the staff to my scythe and held it in front of me. My eyes were closed, but at least I was in between the two.**_

_**When he sent Medusa's head to the gods…I'll admit that I wanted to laugh. They didn't seem like such a big deal. I mean, aren't some of the primordial gods more powerful than they are? Like my father. He holds powers over shadows…and they're everywhere.**_

_**Gods, I really don't want to know what we're up against next.**_


	13. Author's Note

I apologize to all of my readers and fans, but this is what I feel like I have to do. Either I'm going to let someone take over my stories, or I'm going to delete all of them with the intention on reposting some heavily edited (some not heavily edited) stories. I'm going to repost one at a time and I've decided on posting my Naruto story first. I will put up a new poll asking people to vote on the one they want me to work on after I finish the Naruto story.

The reason why I haven't posted in the last year or so is difficult to explain, but a rough summary would be that I was Saved by the Lord and I found a wonderful relationship with the man of my dreams. I've been working on some original stuff and I hope to have some stuff published in the future.

Thank you for being so understanding.


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